Low Heart Rate and calories burned

captmel

Hi! I have a question i hope someone can help me with.

So I have an unusually low resting heart rate of about 43 BPM. I was trying to find out how many calories I burned today during a run. I weigh 200lbs. The treadmill said 485 calories for the 3 miles in 30 minutes.

But I also used a calculation I found on one of the message boards here using weight,age, average heartrate, and worktime time.

(0.074 x Your age - 0.05741 x Weight in pounds + 0.4472 x Average heart rate - 20.4022) x exercise duration in minutes / 4.184

Which told me I burned 287 calories? My average heartrate was 156.

Thats a huge difference!

Just wondering if Maybe because I have such a low heart rate maybe I don't burn calories nearly as quick as the average person. Is this right? Would that mean i require less calories than it says i do?

Mr_Knight

But I also used a calculation I found on one of the message boards here using weight,age, average heartrate, and worktime time.

(0.074 x Your age - 0.05741 x Weight in pounds + 0.4472 x Average heart rate - 20.4022) x exercise duration in minutes / 4.184

Throw out that calculation. Calories burned running is 99% determined by only two things - the distance you ran, and your bodyweight. Whether your heart rate is high or low during the run is ignorable.

A 200 pound person running 3 miles on a track or road etc will burn a net of about 380 calories. Take 15% off if you're on a treadmill, unless you put it at ~2% incline.

BrianSharpe

Throw out that calculation. Calories burned running is 99% determined by only two things - the distance you ran, and your bodyweight. Whether your heart rate is high or low during the run is ignorable.

A 200 pound person running 3 miles on a track or road etc will burn a net of about 380 calories. Take 15% off if you're on a treadmill, unless you put it at ~2% incline.

^^ This

It also demonstrates one of the fundamental flaws with many lower end heart rate monitors that directly correlate caloric expenditure to heart rate.

Runners World has a handy (and much simpler) formula for estimating net calories expended running:

.63 x weight in lbs x distance in miles

http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/how-many-calories-are-you-really-burning

DavidSTC

Throw out that calculation. Calories burned running is 99% determined by only two things - the distance you ran, and your bodyweight. Whether your heart rate is high or low during the run is ignorable.

A 200 pound person running 3 miles on a track or road etc will burn a net of about 380 calories. Take 15% off if you're on a treadmill, unless you put it at ~2% incline.

^^ This

It also demonstrates one of the fundamental flaws with many lower end heart rate monitors that directly correlate caloric expenditure to heart rate.

Runners World has a handy (and much simpler) formula for estimating net calories expended running:

.63 x weight in lbs x distance in miles

http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/how-many-calories-are-you-really-burning

That's a great article, and a great way to calculate calories burned through running.

The "net calorie burn" aspect is something that hadn't even entered my mind. I always thought that the calorie estimates through MFP and other online tools seem high. This would explain part of that.

It's also interesting that speed walking actually could burn more calories than slow running.

captmel

Thanks for the comments! Gee I wish I knew this before! Wouldn't have ate back all of my exercise calories!

DavidSTC

Thanks for the comments! Gee I wish I knew this before! Wouldn't have ate back all of my exercise calories!

When I'm using MFP or other calorie estimators, I usually only count a percentage of their estimate ... maybe 60-75%. It's kept me from overestimating my calories burned and helped me burn more stored fat if I'm underestimating. It's worked for me so far.