WARNING! Fitness Apps Give Inaccurate Calorie Burns!

DownsizingAaron
DownsizingAaron Posts: 127 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I walk a lot. I've tracked my walks with 3 different Android apps and the data they track can vary substantially. Here's an example from today:

Verizon Samsung Galaxy S3
Android 4.3

Runkeeper 4.3.4
6.02 mi
1445 calories

MapMyFitness 2.9.3
6.23 mi
2096 calories

Endomondo 9.4.0
6.54 mi
2225 calories

WOW! This level of discrepancy has been around over several months I have been tracking and through multiple updates of each application. As you can see, the numbers are all over the map! Originally I was using the calorie burn numbers from Endomondo and found I wasn't losing as much weight as I should have. When I switched to using the numbers from Runkeeper, the pounds started coming off like they should.

Replies

  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
    No measuring device is 100% accurate.

    All numbers should be treated with caution!
  • abadvat
    abadvat Posts: 1,241 Member
    ... any of them linked to a HRM or just guestimations based on BMI?
  • marcellomoo
    marcellomoo Posts: 107 Member
    I tried using mapmywalk for about a week and had to stop. I'd track a walk with my boyfriend and then he'd take the time and pace and enter it manually into his mfp. The values were completely different! For about a 25 minute walk, mapmywalk would say I'd burnt ~200cal and mfp was saying ~130cal. Given that mfp estimates are considered high, I just couldn't keep using mapmywalk estimates. Instead, I now track walks with mapmywalk, recreate the walk in mfp, delete the mapmywalk entry and don't record the walk back at all (logging 50% instead of logging 100% and eating back 50%). When working out at the gym, I've been programming the machines and using the calorie burns they tell me. They're about half of mfp's values, so I believe they're pretty accurate to go on.

    My net calorie graphs were a mess using a mixture of the more accurate gym estimates and high mfp/ mapmywalk ones, but I find that logging like this I feel I have a better idea of what number I should be eating back.
  • determinedbutlazy
    determinedbutlazy Posts: 1,941 Member
    Pretty weird. I've measured the calorie burns RK gives me against my heart rate monitor for the same run and they both give very similar numbers.
  • Dewymorning
    Dewymorning Posts: 762 Member
    Pretty weird. I've measured the calorie burns RK gives me against my heart rate monitor for the same run and they both give very similar numbers.

    Sounds like RK is a good estimator than.
  • drop_it_like_a_squat
    drop_it_like_a_squat Posts: 377 Member
    No measuring device is 100% accurate.

    All numbers should be treated with caution!

    This.
    They are all estimations. Especially if you use devices that don't base the calorie burn on your HR.
    That's why so many people use the TDEE-method instead of eating back calories.
  • Iwantchange_22
    Iwantchange_22 Posts: 49 Member
    mfp is horrible for exaggerating calories burned. I think its best to either get a heart rate monitor, use the calories burned according to the exercise machine or work it out yourself. :F
  • Serebro
    Serebro Posts: 6 Member
    I'd actually consider that the MFP ones are inaccurate in that case, as supported by: http://www.mycaloriesburned.com/calories-burned-walking/ "All data is from the Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise journal, the official journal of the American College of Sports Medicine." That site claims that a fast walk for someone at 205 lbs would burn 465 cal/hr, or if you were walking slow (2mph, pretty much just ambling along) you'd still burn 233 cal/hr.

    The ones on MFP seem to be the ones for someone around 130lbs, and don't seem to adjust much for varying weight. They're certainly much lower in the 200+ lb range than what the professional journal claims.

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