Treadmill vs. MFP

dniania

When I walked on the treadmill for 2.5 mph with an incline of .05 for 20 minutes MFP said I burned 102 calories but my treadmill said I burned 141 calories... which is right?

suruda

Probably neither....I would go with the lower estimate. The general rule of thumb is that we greatly overestimate the calories we burn and underestimate the calories we consume. I eat back very few (or none) of my exercise calories. If I feel like I need them which sometimes I do after a huge hike or something then I won't hesitate. Otherwise, I figure it's a bit more of a deficit which is a bonus!

Emily3907

Ugh - I got so sick of trying to figure out my burn on the treadmill that I invested in a heart rate monitor. Now, I just base my burn off of that. Also, I still only eat 50% back, at most.

shelleyrhoads

I know it is the general idea that mfp overestimates calorie burn. But why? I have checked out different sites, and all of the ones that take weight in account state similar numbers for simalr exercises.

Tacklewasher

I log with a HRM that is linked so I never really look at what MFP gives.
Looking now, 30 mins of treadmill and MFP cals out 549 cal. My HRM had me at 258.
Went for a 6-7K snow shoe on the weekend and my watch told me ~1,050 cals for 2 hours 10 mins. MFP shows 2117.

MsAmandaNJ

I understand nothing will be exact, but seeing as I've seen so many comments stating that MFP exercise calories are grossly overestimated (as evidenced by @Tacklewasher s account showing DOUBLE actual), why doesn't MFP change how they estimate burn? If their goal is to make users feel better about their exercise by inflating calorie burn, they are only letting us down. It's no wonder that people will log honestly, yet struggle to lose weight.

Tacklewasher

They are pulling the info from another database. These things kind of become a bigger issue.

Kind of like how Google maps shows my house at the far end of the street. Garmin and others show the same thing.

MelanieCN77

So I use my AW to track and it tells me how many calories I've burned overall in that period and distinguishes between "active" and "total." Active is the burn from the exercise based on steps and heartrate, and total includes those I am burning by existing. I've found that my treadmill report more or less matches up with the total on the watch. It logs just the 'active' as exercise cals. I'd always log the lower, in any case. I've been working this way for 6 months and eat within 100 cals of my calories including exercise and am losing 1/2 pound a week as set. I think it's important to be mindful of your burns and keep track, and over time you will learn where they are reliable and there'll be times where you'll just know it's overblown and can adjust accordingly.

For reference, a 40 minute trot for me (run walk combo) with warmup and cooldown gets me about 225ish cals. I'd almost certainly eat 150+ of those back.

MelanieCN77

derp double post

TR0berts

Normally, the treadmill's algorithm should be pretty close - provided it has you enter your weight. That said, I'd probably go with the lower one. As time goes on, if you're not losing weight at the expected rate, you can always adjust as necessary.

fitmom4lifemfp

dniania wrote: »

When I walked on the treadmill for 2.5 mph with an incline of .05 for 20 minutes MFP said I burned 102 calories but my treadmill said I burned 141 calories... which is right?

Never ever go by the treadmill. The machine are notorious for being WAY high on the calorie burn. If you don't have a HRM, then a good estimate to use is 100 cal per mile. If your pace was 2.5 mph, then that is 24 minutes per mile (really very slow). So you covered less than a mile - .83 of a mile to be exact. I would use 83 calories.

Francl27

Did you enter your weight on the treadmill? If so, I've found it to overestimate by 10-15% tops.