Calories burned on stationary bikes
Replies
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cwolfman13 wrote: »Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
When I was doing MFP and logging exercise, etc I determined that HR was "good enough." I personally never had issues just going with that number for my cardio and it never hindered my weight loss. That said, I would make adjustments when I knew it my calorie burn was inflated...for example, when I ride in the AM, my HR is always quite a bit higher than it is for the same work performed later in the afternoon...like a moderately paced 15-16 MPH 20K in the early morning could easily have my HR in the mid 150s...same exact ride in the afternoon and I would average 138...in these instances, I had enough data to look at the number and see it was inflated and to just use the calorie burn from some previous afternoon session on the same route.
I'd like to get a power meter at some point...not so much for the calorie expenditure, but for training purposes and seeing what kind of watts I'm putting out.
I've done the same, and had similar results/experiences in the past.
I've recently moved to Garmin's wrist-based monitoring, and while the numbers seem a shade higher than I'd expect, I've not been logging my intake consistently enough for long enough to really know for sure.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.
Looking at the chart @sijomial just posted, it's easy to see why!
I guess it's a matter of perspective/expectations.
I don't have a power meter, so I have no way to be "exact" with my calorie burn estimates. "Reasonable" is good enough for me.
My expectation is only that my HR indicates my exertion level and a power meter gives me the sometimes disappointing truth of my power output.
I don't use a power meter outdoors and just go by Strava's ballpark calorie number - reasonable is reasonable enough. Even when I started out and used what I now know were badly inflated number from a Polar FT7 I still managed my calorie balance just fine.
With the multitude of estimates that go into trying to figure your calorie balance there's always a fighting chance inaccuracies cancel each other out.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.
Looking at the chart @sijomial just posted, it's easy to see why!
I guess it's a matter of perspective/expectations.
I don't have a power meter, so I have no way to be "exact" with my calorie burn estimates. "Reasonable" is good enough for me.
I did dozens of tests for a while, comparing a modern, high end HRM to a PM, and the HRM would be off by more than 40% at times. Once it was within 10 calories of the truth, other times it was over by nearly half. It was about as consistent as dice.
Strava is probably a better way to estimate calories. They know your weight, the bike's weight, your speed, and the general shape of the terrain. Give them the same file twice, and they'll give you the same number twice; it isn't fully accurate but it's consistent. And it's entirely predictable when it will be wrong.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »
I'd like to get a power meter at some point...not so much for the calorie expenditure, but for training purposes and seeing what kind of watts I'm putting out.Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
You can even use a power meter to figure out which jacket or body position is most aerodynamic. You just need a windless day and to repeat a route.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.
Looking at the chart @sijomial just posted, it's easy to see why!
I guess it's a matter of perspective/expectations.
I don't have a power meter, so I have no way to be "exact" with my calorie burn estimates. "Reasonable" is good enough for me.
I did dozens of tests for a while, comparing a modern, high end HRM to a PM, and the HRM would be off by more than 40% at times. Once it was within 10 calories of the truth, other times it was over by nearly half. It was about as consistent as dice.
Strava is probably a better way to estimate calories. They know your weight, the bike's weight, your speed, and the general shape of the terrain. Give them the same file twice, and they'll give you the same number twice; it isn't fully accurate but it's consistent. And it's entirely predictable when it will be wrong.
meh, it's been good enough for me, I'm going to continue calling it good enough for me. I've never seen numbers from any of my garmins (or my Suunto before that, that was non-GPS) that were so far out of left field to account for a 40% difference. Actually, I did, but that was when my old chest strap was failing.
Similar workouts at similar RPEs and at similar HRs have always given me similar numbers. Maybe I'm just lucky. #specialsnowflake.0 -
How would you know whether your HRM was off by 40% for calories or not? It sounds like you're saying it's accurate (for calories) because you want it to be.0
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Either it's accurate enough, or it's off by ~40% every time all the time.
Either way... when I use it as the basis for my calorie expenditures, in conjunction with logging my intake... my actual weight loss lines up pretty closely with what the math predicts. And ultimately, that's what accurate is to me.0 -
My RPE for the same speed at the same route tends to change based on how much exercise I've done lately and how much sleep I got, etc. RPE is a pretty good indicator of how much gas you have in the tank, how hard you're able to push at any given moment, but I don't think it's a very accurate or consistent measure of workload.0
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At this point, I'm not sure what you're arguing. Is there any option you'll accept as reasonable that isn't a PM?
I never said RPE was a reliable measure of anything. Heck, I never said HRMs were reliable measures. I said HRMs were reliable ESTIMATES FOR ME. And for me, that's all any of this is... a whole series of estimates. The trick is getting those estimates to play nicely together.0 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Roughly, maybe, but not exactly. I've been rowing (machine) almost daily for the last few weeks. I row similar intensity/duration every time, per the Concept 2 monitor. So, same work = same calories. HRM calories can differ by 20% or more. Why? Time of day, hydration, who knows.
HR is loosely related to calorie burn for aerobic exercise, to the point that it can provide a useful proxy estimator. It's approximate, though. And the further one gets from continuous aerobic exercise, the worse it is. HRM howlingly overestimates weight training calories, for example.1 -
At this point, I'm not sure what you're arguing. Is there any option you'll accept as reasonable that isn't a PM?
I'm not arguing. I'm sharing facts I know to be true. I'm not calling anybody names, implying anything negative, etc. Simply sharing useful experience that's relevant to the topic we're all discussing. Why would you think I'm arguing? Is it just some kind of MFP thing?0 -
Ok, my mistake.1
This discussion has been closed.
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