Best estimates for calorie burn

lks802

The calories burned in MFP and map my fitness are overestimate and I typically disregard. I would rely on my polar HRM to give me my best estimate. But, I saw on a post here that HRM aren’t a great estimator either, and there was a formula used for running walking. (Distance x weight x .3) and it gave me fewer calories by about 100 than my HRM.

So it got me thinking. I wear my HRM when you m doing body weight exercises to give me my burn. Now I’m curious what others do.

I’m not asking because I’ve been struggling with loss, but trying to see if there is a more accurate way to track my output. (Also, I’m not a person who tracks every bit of activity for exercise-I.e, I don’t count calories for normal daily walking etc. I only track activities I set out to do for fitness)

AnvilHead

You may find this article interesting: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/the-real-facts-about-hrms-and-calories-what-you-need-to-know-before-purchasing-an-hrm-or-using-one-21472

TavistockToad

Running is bodyweight in lbs x 0.63 x distance in miles

Walking is x 0.3

middlehaitch

Use one method, log it eat all the calories, or a set percentage, for 4-6 weeks, if a woman (menstrual cycle can influence weight change), 3-4 if a man, then use your personal data to work out your calorie burn running.

(Can apply to any activity, exercise)

This is the most accurate. All devices, trackers, web calculators, in MFP, are just estimates, guide lines. Your own data accrued over time is takes into account your own idiosyncrasies, and logging foibles.

Cheers, h.

sijomial

Do keep in mind the HRMs count heartbeats and there's no direct correlation from heartbeats to energy. It's really a cardio training aid and not a calorie counter.

HRMs can be fine for calorie estimates for some people doing some exercises but they can also be very, very inaccurate for many people and many types of exercise. Unless you have validated the estimates against a more accurate method it's dubious how accurate it is.
If your Polar estimates from your run were close to the running formula for net calories posted above then that would be a reasonable validation.

Unless your particular Polar HRM has a setting for strength training then then using it for estimates is an awful misuse of the tool and likely to give badly inflated estimates (the further from steady state cardio you go with a basic HRM the less suitable it is).

For my strength training I just enter the duration of my workout in the CV part of the diary - it's a perfectly reasonable estimate based on METS. Reasonable is actually good enough for the purpose unless you are doing massive amounts of exercise when accuracy become more of an issue.