RECUMBANT BIKE

katnippers1

I road my bike before work this morning for 11 minutes. MFP says I burned 132 calories. On my fitbit it says I burned only 16 calories. What is the real amount of calories burned?

sijomial

MFP estimates know knowing about your ride apart from your speed - pretty hopeless way to estimate, you might be lucky but it requires luck as it's not taking all the other cycling factors into account. (Personally I find Strava reasonably OK for cycling estimates.)

I doubt your Fitbit is actually estimating 16 calories for you exercise (that's obviously far too low) - it's more likely an adjustment of your daily activity at that point.

If you are letting your Fitbit set your calorie target why would you be logging exercise separately in MyFitnessPal?

katnippers1

I just wanted to use the most accurate one.

DanyellMcGinnis

katnippers1 wrote: »

I road my bike before work this morning for 11 minutes. MFP says I burned 132 calories. On my fitbit it says I burned only 16 calories. What is the real amount of calories burned?

Fitbits aren't good at some non-step exercises. Mine records no steps at all when I use my recumbent bike. Not even when I put it on my shoe.

Edit: If it's not recording steps, you may still get some heart rate data, depending on the model (mine doesn't do this).

sijomial

katnippers1 wrote: »

I just wanted to use the most accurate one.

The most accurate estimate of two bad estimates is still a bad estimate, not that the number you gave from your Fitbit is actually an estimate for your ride anyway.

NorthCascades

katnippers1 wrote: »

I just wanted to use the most accurate one.

Power meter.

Jthanmyfitnesspal

The MFP bike estimates are very high. My Garmin watch always reports lower. But, a net calorie estimate of 16 calories is ridiculously low. Which Fitbit reported that?

dmkoenig

On average, you can expect to burn 350 -750 calories/per hour depending on your weight and level of intensity. If you rode for 11 minutes I'm guessing you were just getting warmed up when you stopped so probably closer to the lower level. That you put your calorie burn at 70-80 calories. To get to 132 calories you need to be redlining (max effort) which is not going to happen in the first few minutes of exercise. A good way to make things a bit more interesting and stay on the bike longer is to do some interval work. Start with a 5 minute easy warm-up, then do 5 sets of (30 seconds really pushing hard followed by 90 seconds easy recovery). Finish up with a 5 minute easy cool down. That will get you to 20 minutes and about 150+ calories. Good luck!