Are the amount of calories burned estimated correctly?

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jade2112
jade2112 Posts: 272 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I'm seeing on my home page a lot of my friends showing how many calories they burned during exercise. Most of them are super high numbers.

For instance, one entry said the person had burned over 1,000 calories on the elliptical in 45 minutes others 550 for a half hour of cardio, etc.

The machines I use don't come anywhere near those amounts. I can walk on the treadmill for an hour at 3.5 mph and just get over 100 calories burned.

Are these numbers correct? If someone is eating back that many calories from a workout and still losing weight perhaps I don't understand what I'm talking about.

Replies

  • FP4HSharon
    FP4HSharon Posts: 664 Member
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    MFP says it's most accurate to use whatever the machine you are using says you burned, most machines ask for your weight, which also helps make those numbers more accurate. I've found the MFP estimates are usually high & I have to lower them to what the machine says...in some cases quite a bit. Although MFP does factor in your weight in the calculations. I only eat back my cardio calories, not my strength training. When I tried to eat back the latter, I wasn't losing any weight.
  • jobean12
    jobean12 Posts: 99 Member
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    You won't see a huge number from walking at 3.5, that's just the way it is, if you want to kick up that number, up the incline...... one of the fastest ways to increase calorie burn when your walking. Walk one minute at 3.5 and check the number, then walk a minute at a high incline and see the difference.
  • jobean12
    jobean12 Posts: 99 Member
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    and........... what ever you are doing must be working if you are 127 lbs down! Congrats on that! Got any advice?
  • Sierra_christine89
    Sierra_christine89 Posts: 156 Member
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    I don't have HRM yet, but I would recommend you getting one if you actually want to get an accurate number because MFP gets its burned calorie estimate from google, and thats for the "average person" but theres a new "Average person" every year, right? No one is the same..
    I sometimes think I am burning more than what it tells me, and other days I feel like I burned less.
    I especially recommend getting and HRM if you can't stand the fact that you can't guesstimate calories burned during strength training, like squats, or crunches. >:| Urrrrgghhh
  • Sierra_christine89
    Sierra_christine89 Posts: 156 Member
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    So much misspelled words, and punctuation mistakes in that ^^ :/
    Sorry! I'm super exhausted, and it drives me crazy when that happens to me.
    Had to comment on that!
    I'm NOT stupid. :P
  • SarahRea32
    SarahRea32 Posts: 167 Member
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    In a word NO!

    I always wondered the same thing. I have friends that burn crazy amounts and I do wonder how accurate they are, but hat they are doing seems to be working so I don't comment. I have bought a HRM and the calorie burns that MFP had been calculating for me were definitely wrong. I work in kilometres per hour and if I walk for 40 mins at about 6-6.5 kph (no idea what the mile per hour would be) I burn around 350 calories so your 100 seems pretty low - unless 3.5 mph is very very slow?!

    As a Previous poster said, you are rocking it! So I wouldn't stress it unless you are having a problem getting out of plateau
    Best wishes :)
  • fannyfrost
    fannyfrost Posts: 756 Member
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    Most of what I have heard is to always take the number of calories burned as an approximate. MFP is definitely over estimating, but you can't count on the machines either. All of it is an estimate because there is nothing that is taking into account the your body fat percentage or metabolism. Those things do change your calories burned.

    I personally do much better when I don't eat back those calories. I have been stuck because I broke that habit and have been eating back the calories burned most days. I need to start ignoring it again and stick with eating my 1600 calories.
  • jade2112
    jade2112 Posts: 272 Member
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    Thank you, everyone, for the comments and "way to goes".

    I'll keep with what the machine I'm on says since I don't want to overestimate calories burned.
  • krackens
    krackens Posts: 1
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    I am in the process of becoming a certified personal trainer and one of the first things I learned was how inaccurate machines are in saying how many calories you burn. It is really impossible for a machine to actually tell you how many calories you burned without a lot more information than just your weight. I used to elliptical for 60 minutes and would think I burned 1200 calories, that was defininately not the case. Just keep that in mind!

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