Treadmill calories vs smartwatch

jennydelgado09

So I did almost 11 mile run today on the treadmill. I started off at 6mph, Did that for .25 miles and then went down to 4.9 for .10 miles then back up to 6.6, back down to 5.2 then back up to 7 then to 7.6 and then to 8mph to finish off. Not the most organized intervals but something. I know that's suppose to burn more calories. The treadmill says I ran 1 mile and burned about 140 calories.

My Samsung gear fit 2 says I ran 1.57 miles and burned about 250 calories.

While I'm more inclined to believe the treadmill the watch does have my height/weight and heart rate monitered plus the step count is pretty accurate.

But wanted to get some input on which one sounds more believable.

PAV8888

As you gather more data from repeat runs you will develop a sense as to which one is more accurate.

At this point, in the context of a complete day's calories where you probably burn somewhere in the 2K range in terms of TDEE. Thus the 100 Calories difference amounts to less than 5% of your complete day.

In the context of a 20% deficit, 5% is still only a relatively small part of your deficit.

Personally, I find it easier to "export" the function of TDEE estimation to my Fitbit. I periodically compare my calories eaten to my "purported" calories burned as per my Fitbit, and to the deficit or surplus that my trending weight results from trendweight.com (or Libra for Android, Happy Scale for iphone, weightgrapher.com for those who don't want to use a freely available without a device fitbit.com account in order to input their data into trendweight) indicate that I actually had.

This gives me a "correction" factor that I can take into consideration when establishing my target calories.

(for example, for me, and based on the way I log my intake and the type of activities that I customarily engage in, my Fitbit is over-estimating my TDEE by a bit less than 5%. You can estimate the same for your Gear Fit over a substantial period of time--month or two, not days)

collectingblues

In this situation, I go by my Watch -- but that's because I've run outside with it for the recommended time that it needs to gauge stride, and my usual running stride. I'd suspected for ages that I was covering more ground than the treadmill said I was, so I wasn't surprised when the Watch gave me about a 10 percent increase over what the treadmill said.

sijomial

jennydelgado09 wrote: »

So I did almost 11 mile run today on the treadmill. I started off at 6mph, Did that for .25 miles and then went down to 4.9 for .10 miles then back up to 6.6, back down to 5.2 then back up to 7 then to 7.6 and then to 8mph to finish off. Not the most organized intervals but something. I know that's suppose to burn more calories. The treadmill says I ran 1 mile and burned about 140 calories.

My Samsung gear fit 2 says I ran 1.57 miles and burned about 250 calories.

While I'm more inclined to believe the treadmill the watch does have my height/weight and heart rate monitered plus the step count is pretty accurate.

But wanted to get some input on which one sounds more believable.

Bold is false - it makes it feel harder (because it is harder!) and may (in some situations) result in better fitness adaptations but really calories are in relation to distance travelled and not the speed let alone variations in speed until you get to sprinting pace.
Interval training is far harder for HRM based estimates too - your HR is still elevated after the quicker intervals out of proportion to your slower pace.
And heartrate itself is a pretty poor and varied estimator of calories anyway - there's a very wide range of accuracy, especially with varied fitness levels.

Is your stride length the same at different paces? (You mentioned step count and I'm not seeing that's particularly helpful if stride length varies a lot?). I would more believe the distance from the treadmill not your Samsung.

Personally I would use for a flat run the formula bodyweight in pounds X 0.63 X miles run.

tess5036

The treadmill will give the more accurate distance as it measures the movement of the belt, the watch makes additions on your stride length (which can vary even if you have sent it in the watch). The treadmill is also able to account for incline. However, it may not be accurate on calorie burn if it does not have you weight/height variables.
Personally I'd play it safe and assume the lowest calorie burn given.

Tacklewasher

I'm 200 lbs and clock in close to 80 cals per KM, or ~130 per mile. Both my watch (Garmin) and the formula above work out to that so I go with it.

When on the treadmill, my watch is usually off for distance, but not that much (maybe .5 KM over 5 KM at most).

I'd go with the formula and assume you ran 1 mile.