Heart Rate Calculator vs. MFP Activity Calculator

MagisterMundi
MagisterMundi Posts: 11 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello all,

I'm a 5'8" 24-year-old man weighing in at 250 pounds.

I did a 40 minute interval work out on an elliptical today where my average heart rate was 180. Sometimes it spiked to 190, sometimes it dropped to 170, but overall it was solidly in the 180 range.

So, according to the elliptical, I burned 500 calories. According to the MFP calculator, I burned 535 calories. In both cases, I did the standard "understate your weight by 10 pounds to counter bias" thing. However, according to a heart rate calorie calculator, I burned a whopping 832 calories.

My question: which is he most accurate? Generally I trust heart rate calculators more, but I'm immediately suspicious when it reports 300 calories burned over the other two calculators, which are themselves prone to over estimating calories burned.

Thoughts?

Replies

  • MagisterMundi
    MagisterMundi Posts: 11 Member
    ...anyone?
  • cmccarthy7
    cmccarthy7 Posts: 13
    I don't see that big of a difference between my HRM and the calculations on the ellipticals on the gym. I do think that the MFP burn suggestions are on the higher side by 15-20%, but have not really worked hard at calculating this difference many times - only a few. For a 250 lb person with that heart rate to only burn 12.5 cals/minute seems a little on the low side.

    I am quite a bit older at 51, with 182 lb weight, and tyipcally burn in the 12 cal/min range with an average HR in the 140 range while working on cardio.

    I know this might not be to big of a help, but I would continue to monitor your results over a 2-3 week period and see if you are still seeing the same differences. One other point I just thought of - did you turn the HRM off as soon as you finished the exercise? If you waited another 10-20 mins and your heart rate stayed up this would cause additiona calorie burn that the machine could not monitor.

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