Cardio Equipment Calorie Accuracy

Ron_in_NC

Hi. I'm Ron, in the Cary, NC area. I have been a member at Planet Fitness for about 3 weeks now. I am focusing on the cardio equipment (treadmill, bike) for now, as I had surgery for stage IV melanoma, and I don't think I'm fully healed inside, and the weights may put a strain on me. Anyway, I have noticed that when I walk the treadmill, as I did this morning, I did 70 minutes on the treadmill, and it reflected that I burned 450 calories, based on the workout level I chose. When I enter "add exercies", and the treadmill for 70 minutes, myfitnesspal wants to calculate the calories at 963 burned. I change the amount to 450 calories, but then it adds an "adjustment burned" under the Exercise category. Can someone help me on how I should be annotating this? I don't want to leave what myfitnesspal puts down, and thinking I burned much more calories than I actually did. Thanks.

malibu927

A lot of people find MFP's calorie adjustments to be inflated. Even the machine could be as well. To be safe, start with eating back half of what you log, and adjust after four weeks depending on how your rate of loss is comparing to what is expected.

Thehardmakesitworthit

Hi Ron, first, so glad for you being on your way to wellness after your diagnosis! Amen to that. I agree that the numbers seem inflated. I generally follow that rule of only eating back 1/2 of my calories burned just in case.

Ron_in_NC

malibu927 wrote: »

A lot of people find MFP's calorie adjustments to be inflated. Even the machine could be as well. To be safe, start with eating back half of what you log, and adjust after four weeks depending on how your rate of loss is comparing to what is expected.

Thanks for the information Malibu927. I didn't think of eating back just 1/2, but that makes sense. What the treadmill indicated was that I burned off 450 calories, but when entering it in this program, it wants to jack it up to 963, which is over twice as much. I trust the treadmill more, but even the treadmill doesn't know for sure, as everyone's body structure, etc. are different. Also, I realized that the 'adjustment' that was being made was from my Fitbit, as I synced my Fitbit to this program, and the Fitbit is even worse. When walking, it annotates it that the calories are just dropping off, and gives you even more than the program gives you. Again, thanks for your advice! Ron

Ron_in_NC

Thehardmakesitworthit wrote: »

Hi Ron, first, so glad for you being on your way to wellness after your diagnosis! Amen to that. I agree that the numbers seem inflated. I generally follow that rule of only eating back 1/2 of my calories burned just in case.

Thank you for your kind words. It makes sense to only eat back 1/2. If you use the treadmill, and the treadmill shows you burned off something like 300 calories, but this program shows 700, do you leave it at 700, or change it to 300? Or just eat back 350, which is 1/2 of the 700?

stanmann571

andersonr0257 wrote: »

Thehardmakesitworthit wrote: »

Hi Ron, first, so glad for you being on your way to wellness after your diagnosis! Amen to that. I agree that the numbers seem inflated. I generally follow that rule of only eating back 1/2 of my calories burned just in case.

Thank you for your kind words. It makes sense to only eat back 1/2. If you use the treadmill, and the treadmill shows you burned off something like 300 calories, but this program shows 700, do you leave it at 700, or change it to 300? Or just eat back 350, which is 1/2 of the 700?

If I used the treadmill, I wouldn't use the "treadmill entry" in MFP. I'd use the appropriate walk/run entry.

Although, having just checked the "appropriate walk/run entry" I'm thinking it's inflated.

erickirb

malibu927 wrote: »

A lot of people find MFP's calorie adjustments to be inflated. Even the machine could be as well. To be safe, start with eating back half of what you log, and adjust after four weeks depending on how your rate of loss is comparing to what is expected.

Most treadmills are pretty good estimates of work performed (cals burned) and have been tested over many years. Do you enter your weight on the machine before starting? If so, then it should be a good estimator, if you don't enter your weight, it assumes everyone is a certain weight, and if you are well over or under that amount then it could be way off. Other equipment, such as an elliptical, is not very accurate as they have not been confirmed by study after study like treadmills have.

RadishEater

I will enter in the number closer to the treadmill. myfitnesspal doesn't know how fast or what incline you were at on the treadmill. If the treadmill says you burned 300, I would enter a time into myfitnesspal that gives me 240-250 calories.

Note: I eat back most of my exercise calories. So it is the essentially the same thing as eating back less. I just feel like some cardio equipment like the elliptical and treadmill overestimate the calories you burn.

erickirb

kballsocc wrote: »

I will enter in the number closer to the treadmill. myfitnesspal doesn't know how fast or what incline you were at on the treadmill. If the treadmill says you burned 300, I would enter a time into myfitnesspal that gives me 240-250 calories.

Note: I eat back most of my exercise calories. So it is the essentially the same thing as eating back less. I just feel like some cardio equipment like the elliptical and treadmill overestimate the calories you burn.

Treadmills don't ususally overestimate, but they give you total cals burned, which also included what you would have burned had you not worked out (Maintenance cals) so if accuracy is what you are going for you should back out your maintenance cals from what the treadmil says and enter that into MFP to get calories burned from exercise, not just cals burned during exercise as the maintenance portion is already included in your MFP daily caloires. For most people this is 1.25-1.75 cals/minute (maintenance cals/24hours/60 minutes)

RadishEater

erickirb wrote: »

Treadmills don't ususally overestimate, but they give you total cals burned, which also included what you would have burned had you not worked out (Maintenance cals) so if accuracy is what you are going for you should back out your maintenance cals from what the treadmil says and enter that into MFP to get calories burned from exercise, not just cals burned during exercise as the maintenance portion is already included in your MFP daily caloires. For most people this is 1.25-1.75 cals/minute (maintenance cals/24hours/60 minutes)

Do you have articles/papers to back this up? I have read many articles stating the overestimation of calories burned but have not gone down the rabbit hole of finding and reading the papers that support or disprove this claim. But if you have some references, I would be keen to read them.

MeanderingMammal

kballsocc wrote: »

I have read many articles stating the overestimation of calories burned but

I've read lots of blogs recycling received opinion on the accuracy of machines.

In practice it depends on the machine. Commercial treadmills are dealing with a fairly easy calculation, as work done is a function of body mass and distance. Rowing machines are pretty accurate as they directly measure power output. Some gym bikes and turbo trainers are very accurate as they're measuring power, although others don't.

The issue with a treadmill is whether it's displaying gross or net, and that's brand related.

Ellipticals, stairmasters etc are pretty much random number generators.

training4half87

andersonr0257 wrote: »

Hi. I'm Ron, in the Cary, NC area. I have been a member at Planet Fitness for about 3 weeks now. I am focusing on the cardio equipment (treadmill, bike) for now, as I had surgery for stage IV melanoma, and I don't think I'm fully healed inside, and the weights may put a strain on me. Anyway, I have noticed that when I walk the treadmill, as I did this morning, I did 70 minutes on the treadmill, and it reflected that I burned 450 calories, based on the workout level I chose. When I enter "add exercies", and the treadmill for 70 minutes, myfitnesspal wants to calculate the calories at 963 burned. I change the amount to 450 calories, but then it adds an "adjustment burned" under the Exercise category. Can someone help me on how I should be annotating this? I don't want to leave what myfitnesspal puts down, and thinking I burned much more calories than I actually did. Thanks.

I typically do 100 calories per mile unless I add my weight and information into the treadmill then I will follow it. But also with treadmills it does per hour for calories so keep that in mind you might not go the full hour. You can always buy a tracker and see what calories you burned as well.

erickirb

kballsocc wrote: »

erickirb wrote: »

Treadmills don't ususally overestimate, but they give you total cals burned, which also included what you would have burned had you not worked out (Maintenance cals) so if accuracy is what you are going for you should back out your maintenance cals from what the treadmil says and enter that into MFP to get calories burned from exercise, not just cals burned during exercise as the maintenance portion is already included in your MFP daily caloires. For most people this is 1.25-1.75 cals/minute (maintenance cals/24hours/60 minutes)

Do you have articles/papers to back this up? I have read many articles stating the overestimation of calories burned but have not gone down the rabbit hole of finding and reading the papers that support or disprove this claim. But if you have some references, I would be keen to read them.

Hopefully Azdak will chime in, he would have the links/info you are looking for. I am sure I could find some but don't have them linked or saved anywhere.

Essentially though, treadmills measure work done, if you know your weight, and the distance (based on tread speed) you can use the calculation of 0.63 cals x miles x weight in lbs, treadmill should be close to that. The treadmills I use are slightly higher, which leads me to believe they give gross calories, where this calc, I believe is net.

BrianSharpe

FWIW my Garmin 920 gives me very close to what the treadmill at PF does.

As a sanity check use the following formulae for walking or running to get the net calories expended:

walking .30 x weight in lbs x distance in miles
running .66 x weight in lbs x distance in miles

Cycling is different in that the calories burned are not directly correlated to your weight (unless you're riding a lot of big hills). One of my eye openers was when I installed a power meter on my bike and started recording the wattage (based on power output my Garmin cut the calorie expenditure in half). If the bike you're riding measures power output then I would expect the calories to be reasonably accurate.

Ron_in_NC

erickirb wrote: »

malibu927 wrote: »

A lot of people find MFP's calorie adjustments to be inflated. Even the machine could be as well. To be safe, start with eating back half of what you log, and adjust after four weeks depending on how your rate of loss is comparing to what is expected.

Most treadmills are pretty good estimates of work performed (cals burned) and have been tested over many years. Do you enter your weight on the machine before starting? If so, then it should be a good estimator, if you don't enter your weight, it assumes everyone is a certain weight, and if you are well over or under that amount then it could be way off. Other equipment, such as an elliptical, is not very accurate as they have not been confirmed by study after study like treadmills have.

Yes, I enter my age before starting. I have also noticed that when choosing 'add an exercise', that there is only 'one' treadmill in the database, which is stair climber treadmill. I just enter the calories burned that reflect on the treadmill, as that seems more appropriate than double that amount that MFP reflects.

Ron_in_NC

kballsocc wrote: »

I will enter in the number closer to the treadmill. myfitnesspal doesn't know how fast or what incline you were at on the treadmill. If the treadmill says you burned 300, I would enter a time into myfitnesspal that gives me 240-250 calories.

Note: I eat back most of my exercise calories. So it is the essentially the same thing as eating back less. I just feel like some cardio equipment like the elliptical and treadmill overestimate the calories you burn.

Good info! And a good way to eat back most of your calories, as you've not entered ALL that reflect. Can't go wrong that way.