Calories Burned?

ashleyweatherholtzmathis

My husband and I just got a stationary bike. Last night I put in some work on it and noticed that with 10 minutes on a level 5 resistance (14.4mph) that It has me only burning 40 calories. I'm female, 29 years old, 5'7" and 331lbs the machine's profile only goes to 300lbs, so I'm really unsure as to what I'm actually burning so i've been going based off my polar ft4, as it's within 30-40 calories less than what mfp quotes the calories burned are for, so for 10 minutes, I log myself burning 75-80 calories depending on if I interval the resistance on the bike from 5-9-4 and then cool off at level 1 but I don't count the cool off in my calories burnt. Does this seem right?

Jruzer

It doesn't seem way out of bounds, but it's hard for us to tell because "level 5" doesn't tell us much about how hard you're actually working.

In general heavier people burn more calories than lighter people for the same level of effort, but often heavier people are not very fit and can't sustain high levels of output for long.

I usually figure about 7 kcal/minute on the stationary bike for myself, 48 y/o, 165 lbs, M, 5'7", if that helps at all.

NoIdea101NoIdea

I don't know about the math, because i have dyspraxia so am TERRIBLE when it comes to numbers, but i can tell you from experience (wearing a tracker whilst exercising) that using a stationary bike burns a very underwhelming amount of calories compared to the effort you feel like you are putting in (and a lot of other exercise machines out there). But if the machine isn't taking into account your weight, height, etc, then i don't see how it can be completely accurate either! I would personally go off the polar, and probably wouldn't count the cool down either.

TimothyFish

On a stationary bike, 40 calories for 10 minutes may be right.