Calories on Equipment vs. Calories on MFP

BoxerLove09

New to MFP and just started working out. I'm curious to know what I should be going off of as far as what the equipment I'm using says I burned in calories and what it says when I log it on MFP. I did 35 minutes on a stationary bike at a moderate pace and the machine said something like 168 calories and when I log it MFP says its 457 or something like that! What should I be going off of??? Might be a dumb question..but I'm confused! Thanks in advance for any help!!!

cheshirecatastrophe

For calculating calories burned for the purpose of how much to eat for weight loss, take the lower number, and probably only a percentage of it. The calorie readouts on stationary bikes, assuming you plugged in your correct weight at the beginning of the workout (or weight ~150 pounds, the default) are typically the most accurate among cardio machines, only overestimating by an average of 10%. The elliptical in particular is *crazy* inaccurate. Why take the lower number, and why drop it even further? Because one of the biggest pitfalls in trying to lose or maintain weight is overestimating calories burned, leading to overeating when you think you're not.

For purposes of bragging to your friends and Facebook feed about how hard you worked, of course, feel free to use the higher number.

CA_Underdog

Provided your equipment knows your height / weight / age / gender etc. like most machines, it's going to be more accurate in judging your burn than MyFitnessPal. You can further improve the accuracy of many machines by wearing a Polar heart rate monitor.

I'll second MyFitnessPal's "Elliptical" entry is ridiculous, by virtue of it having so little idea how much you actually pushed yourself compared to the machine. The walking entries are better, especially on non-hilly surfaces when you're carrying little or nothing extra.

canderson331

The machines are usually wrong in my experience so Id go with what mfp says and if you dont lose the weight you chose on sign up(ie: 2 lbs per week) then try going off what the machine says..I know a lot of people think that the less food intake the better for weight loss but its far more difficult than that- if you eat too less of food you can gain also..your body goes into a storing mode since your not feeding it enough.

torizia

I would highly recommend getting a heart rate monitor so you can accurately log your exercise calories. However, before I got mine, I used to take the reading from the exercise machine and then subtract 30%, as I read a few articles which stated that the machines can be up to 30% inaccurate so I figure then I'm not risking overestimating my burn significantly. My heart rate monitor tends to show I've burned about 20-25% less than stated on the machines so this seems to have worked well!

CA_Underdog

canderson331 wrote: »

if you eat too less of food you can gain also..your body goes into a storing mode since your not feeding it enough.

This is a myth. In the study where the term "starvation mode" was coined, the participants lost vast amounts of weight. See the links below for more details.

http://www.nowloss.com/starvation-mode-myth.htm

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/761810/the-starvation-mode-myth-again

http://www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=35501

rhirhi715

i would go by what the machine says and manually enter it on mfp,the calories burned on here are over exaggerated