Do you think this is a good way to estimate calories burned on a cardio machine?

numinousnymph

So, I had a Polar FT4 heart rate monitor and it was working great. The battery has died and I have not been able to get a new one and probably won't for a few more weeks. I know that machines are extremely inaccurate in terms of showing you calorie burn. I only use machines that let you enter your weight and age so I can at least get a bit of a closer estimation. On top of that, though, I will enter my weight as 20 lbs less than I really am, and then halve the calorie burn it shows that I end up with. Does that sound like an okay strategy? Do you think I'm underestimating or overestimating? With that method, it usually ends up with ~250 calorie burn for an hour of moderate cardio with bursts of high intensity (heart rate gets to around 115 at the easiest and low 170s at the highest). I am age 25, 5' 4" and somewhere around 125 - 130 lbs (I have not been able to weigh myself for over a month [scale broke and can't afford a new one right now] but I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere in that range). Any insight would help!

AJ_G

The way you're doing it is super conservative, I'm sure you're at least burning 150% of the calories that you end up entering into MFP, but being conservative isn't a bad thing if you're losing weight. As long as you're not losing weight too fast (more than 1% of your body weight per week), then you're fine.

arditarose

I'm 5'4" and between 125-130...I'm pretty sure we'd burn a bit more than 250 in an hour. But like AJ said, just gauge it by how fast you are losing.

sijomial

Think it's a dreadful way to estimate!
You use a device to estimate calories and then put in deliberately wrong information (your weight) and then randomly halve a flawed estimate.

You would get a better idea of your calorie burn potential by seeing how far you can run or walk for a length of time. Both very standard activities which are easy to estimate.

Inkratlet

You presumably have all your previous HRM data so you could base an estimate off your previous 1hr moderate cardio numbers.

Meganthedogmom

I just take whatever calorie burn it gives me and multiply by .75 (or if you want to log half, multiply by .5) and log that. So far so good.

auddii

Inkratlet wrote: »

You presumably have all your previous HRM data so you could base an estimate off your previous 1hr moderate cardio numbers.

That's what I'm thinking. Surely you have a typical workout that you do for an hour and so you know about what your HRM gave you as a burn. Take 10 of those entries, take the average, and use that as your estimated burn.