Realistic calculation of calories burned

just_jess7

Alright. I know that something similar to this has probably been asked time and time again, but I'm a newbie so bear with me please. I'll try to keep it as concise as possible.

At the current moment, I am a 24 year old female weighing in at 301 pounds. My exercise of choice is walking, and I have been using the website mapmyrun.com to track distance and time. Along with that, it gives me a calorie expenditure. The issue is that the expenditure it's giving me is much higher than the default amount MFP gives when I log my activity. I have been altering the calories burned to what mapmyrun gives me, but now I'm questioning whether or not I should do that.

For an example, yesterday I walked for a total of 82 minutes at an average pace of about 3.0 mph, reaching just over 3.6 miles. Now, mapmyrun gave me a calorie expenditure of 907 calories. MFP gave me a result of 617 calories. I have gone to several "calculators" and entered the information in, and have been given anywhere from 500-950 calories burned - which is a huge range!

I know that the best way for me to find out how many calories I'm burning is to purchase a HRM, which I plan to do when money allows. However, at the moment I am on an extremely strict budget and can't wiggle it in quite yet.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to determine the most accurate burn without a HRM? Thanks in advance, I appreciate any advice y'all are able to give me!

vorgas

It is a big range, and will always be. Unfortunately, many of these places don't tell you how they calculate the calorie burns, so it's hard to determine which is accurate. A HRM isn't going to be much more accurate for a variety of reasons (HR too low, unknown VO2 Max, etc), so I wouldn't stress that at this point anyway.

My strong, strong, strong recommendation is to set MFP to a low weight loss per week, say half a pound. Then just don't eat back your exercise calories. Let exercise create your deficit. Exercise more, lose more. Pretty simple. This maximizes what MFP is good at (tracking calories consumed) and minimizes what it's not good at (calculating calories burned).

Then you don't have to stress about what's accurate.

Mr_Bad_Example

Before I had an HRM, I just took the lowest estimate of calories burned to be on the safe side and avoid going over my daily limit.

3dogsrunning

You will never get accurate outside of a lab, even with a HRM. But that's ok, you don't need to be exact.

Pick one estimator and go with that (I usually go with the lowest, I also use mapmyrun and MFP). Or even average them. Use it consistently for a few weeks and see how it works.

phjorg1

use the lowest one. Also don't forget to subtract your BMR from any figure given to you, which will be around 100cal/hour or so.

Lleldiranne

I use the MapMyRun app when I run. I use it mostly for distance, but I've gone with its calorie estimates too. If you are doing any sort of hills, the app will take that into account where MFP won't.

That said, I think they both tend to overestimate calorie burns, especially for heavier people. But I really don't know.

If you're using the MapMyRun calories and losing weight, then I wouldn't change anything. But if your weight loss stalls, try going with MFP's estimates and see how that works. Everything, even HRMs, are just an estimate (some better than others) so there's nothing wrong with playing with your daily calories until you find what is just right for you.

And congratulations on making the decision to eat better and be active! You can do this :happy:

edited for it's/its mistake … I should know better :noway:

_EndGame_

I had a similar problem.

First I bought a Fitbit One, which is great! But I discovered that all it really was, was a glorified pedometer, a very expensive pedometer! So I resorted to getting a Polar FT4 HRM!

I initially wanted a HRM due to the grossly overestimated calorie burns that MFP was giving. I love this site, and it has helped me tons, but the calorie burn estimates are far too high, and could cause problems if you're somebody who eats their exercise calories back.

The Polar FT4 (and a lot of other heart rate monitors HRM) come with a chest strap, the watch and a transmitter. They even work when I use them in the swimming pool. You enter your age, weight and height to the HRM< and then based on those stats and your heart rate during exercise, it gives a deadly accurate readout for the calories you have burned. IT will also tell you when you are in your "zone"

I recommend a HRM to anyone who wants to get an accurate readout for their calories burned during cardio.

just_jess7

Wow. I was not expecting this many responses, especially this quickly! Thank you everyone.

I think that for the time being, I will average out what MFP and MMR give me and use that number, to be on the safe side. As my daily calories are at 1900 already, I don't generally eat many of my exercise calories back anyways, so I'm not worried about going over on calories. This was more out of curiosity, as it would be nice to have a better estimation of what I'm burning.

Again, thanks so much! I guess we'll see if I'm moving in the right direction soon enough.

lisalsd1

Once I read that you can estimate calories burned this way- 5 cals per min for light (walking), 7 cals for moderate (jogging), and 10 cals for vigorous (running) activity. I find that the treadmill that I use generally seems to follow this pattern when estimating cals burned.

just_jess7

edited for it's/its mistake … I should know better :noway:

You're forgiven.

... This time.

phjorg1

The Polar FT4 (and a lot of other heart rate monitors HRM) come with a chest strap, the watch and a transmitter. They even work when I use them in the swimming pool. You enter your age, weight and height to the HRM< and then based on those stats and your heart rate during exercise, it gives a deadly accurate readout for the calories you have burned. IT will also tell you when you are in your "zone"

I recommend a HRM to anyone who wants to get an accurate readout for their calories burned during cardio.

unless you're also able to enter your tested HRmax and vo2max, then it's NOT deadly accurate. In fact could be off by over 100%.