Stationary Bike

hayleywarnken12
hayleywarnken12 Posts: 20 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Question, I do 30 minutes of cardio on a healthy fitness stationary bike, in my 30 minutes I go about 16-17mph & 7.3 miles. The bike says I burn only 140 calories. When I type my excercise into my fitness pal it tells me I burned around 230 calories (I change it to what the bike says)
But I walked slowly about 3 miles today and burned 194 calories....

How accurate is the stationary bike calculator? Should I go off of my fitness pal? Or the bike?

Replies

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    edited January 2020
    The clue is in the name - stationary bikes don't move, you didn't do any miles or go at 16 or 17mph.
    It's a false measurement that is only of use in you comparing your effort between sessions - it bears very, very little relation to real miles and speed outdoors and shouldn't be used for calorie estimations (don't pick an outdoor cycling speed category from the database).

    The problem with cycling is that the calorie range is enormously wide from people pedalling gently with very little resistance right up to the elite few pushing hard and burning calories at a huge rate. MyFitnessPal doesn't know where in that range you are but does give options for different intensities (for example "Stationary bike, light effort (bicycling, cycling, biking"). Problem is relative effort produces very different amounts between an unfit person and a fit cyclist. An unfit person pushing themselves might burn half my hard effort burns of about 720 net calories in an hour, a (male) pro's hard effort would double my effort.

    Unless your bike has a power meter (extremely accurate calorie estimates) the accuracy is again in a range. But TBH I would still use it as at least it's comparable for you and will track fitness improvements.
    A HRM is an option for steady state cardio but again that has a lot of issues around people having very different exercise heartrates. Two people with the same stats could be burning very different calories at the same bpm.

    If your walking was on level ground, normal surface then bodyweight in pounds X efficiency ratio of 0.3 X miles walked gives a reasonable net calorie estimate (you would have to weigh about 210lbs for your estimate to be about right). Walking v. cycling rates of burn aren't that comparable. Running for 30 mins at the same perceived effort level would be a better comparison (BW in lbs X 0.63 X miles = net cals) and give you a better idea of what you are capable of.

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