MFP Calories Burned for Jogging

marchegt

Hey guys!

This is for all your runners out there-- I am wondering if anyone can tell me how accurate MFP is at calculating calories burned from Jogging? I am a very poor student (lol) and can't afford any of those fancy calorie trackers or whatever they are... So I am just wondering if anyone out there knows anything about how many calories burned while jogging, and whether or not this site provides a fairly accurate picture of that. I know some people say for some exercises it is way over, for others it is way under, and some people even say that when they use their calorie tracker things (sorry, no idea what they are called lol i had never even heard of one before this site!!) they find that the machines, like ellipticals, are even way over for the number of calories burned.

Is there anyone out there who can help me with this? I would really appreciate any advise/opinions/ideas!

Thanks everyone!

marchegt

Here is an example-- If I jog at 7mph (seems fairly reasonable... I am from Canada so that works out to about 11kph and I know I can do 5km in about 25 minutes so it makes sense as an average, right?)

Anyways, jogging at 7mph for 20 minutes says I will burn 226 calories... this seems fairly high, however, I know jogging does burn quite a few calories.

just thought I would throw an example out there!

lisahampton

On average, regardless of your speed, you can estimate that you burn 100 calories per mile.

tmcowan

I use a Garmin watch to track everything and I find that MFP is usually withing 20-50 calories lower than my watch.

mdlyke

Weather you walk or run for every mile the average is 100 calories per mile.

marchegt

Thanks all!

Azdak

Here is an example-- If I jog at 7mph (seems fairly reasonable... I am from Canada so that works out to about 11kph and I know I can do 5km in about 25 minutes so it makes sense as an average, right?)

Anyways, jogging at 7mph for 20 minutes says I will burn 226 calories... this seems fairly high, however, I know jogging does burn quite a few calories.

just thought I would throw an example out there!

Fortunately, the equations for calculating running, esp running outdoors, are pretty straightforward and well-validated.

For the speed you mention, and your weight, the number you cite for 20 min is pretty accurate.

You weigh about 59.5 kg and running at 7 mph is an intensity of about 11.7 METS. Multiply the 11.7 METs by 59.5 kg and that is your Kcalories per hour at that speed. Take 1/3 of that number for a 20 min run and there you go.

Obviously, that number will change as you either : run faster (it goes up) or lose weight (it goes down).

In any case, for running outdoors, the MFP calculations should work fine. On a treadmill, I would subtract about 10%

Azdak

I use a Garmin watch to track everything and I find that MFP is usually withing 20-50 calories lower than my watch.

That's not much of a difference to worry about. If you care, you could double check to make sure your actual Maximum heart rate isn't higher than your 220-age estimated max HR. If it is, then your HRM is most likely overestimating your calories (in that case, you could probably fix that by manually entering max HR).