Exercise Bike

Lucy_6678
Lucy_6678 Posts: 63 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I need some help figuring out the exercise bike:

I have a recumbent exercise bike I ride daily for 60 minutes. I ride between 17-18 miles an hour.
My bike says I burn 652 calories for the hour
MFP says I burn 880 calories an hour (MFP only has 880 for 16-20 mph)

Am I really burning 880 calories? This seems way too high to me. 652 calories even seems like a lot. I can feel it in my legs some and I am sweaty but I am not out of breath.

I would appreciate any information you can give me regarding the recumbent bike.

Replies

  • billsica
    billsica Posts: 4,741 Member
    Go with the lower number.

    An HRM (heart rate monitor) would get you a more accurate number.
  • icimani
    icimani Posts: 1,454 Member
    If your bike has the grips that monitor your heart beat, and if it allows you to enter your height and weight, then I'd trust your bike readout more than MFP. I've found that MFP was great the very first time I did something, but any time I went back to change the number of minutes I worked out the calories-burned went way out of whack. For example, yesterday I rode a stationary bike for 15 mins and burned 130 cals (according to my HRM). If I change the time to 16 minutes, MFP jumped the cal-burned to 239. If I enter 20 minutes, MFP puts it at 298. I bought my HRM because I want to make sure I'm working hard enough, and having a more correct cals-burned figure is a benefit even though I don't eat back my exercise calories.
  • krisjohnson121
    krisjohnson121 Posts: 87 Member
    If you can get a HRM go with that. If not - enter your weight on the bike and enter what the machine calculates. If that is not an option google for an activity calculator.

    I have found that MFP is ALWAYS wrong and it can go in either direction (too high or too low). A heart rate monitor is really your best bet. What resistance are you using on the bike? That greatly affects calories burned...
  • rickpearce
    rickpearce Posts: 100 Member
    I understand the curiosity of wanting to know exactly how much... but does it really matter unless you plan to eat back all of those calories? Any exercise goals I set are usually based on time, not cals burned. Then I just let the scale do the talking.

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