calories burned... myfitnesspal vs. exercise equipment

jesswithsuccess

The subject basically says it all. I walked for 23 minutes on the treadmill here at home. It was like .955 of a mile. I did some warm up walking, some fast walking, jogging, back to fast walking, and ended with warm up walking. My treadmill says I burned over 850 calories. myfitnesspal says I burned closer to 215ish. Which one do I go with?

I'm also 300ish lbs. and very out of shape if that means anything as far as how many calories I burned.

thanks in advance!!!!
-Jess

Najay

Buy a Heart Rate Monitor. Will track the calories based on your heart rate.

lisaabenjamin

Neither is very accurate, and the only way you'll get a more accurate reading is if you use a heart rate monitor which calculates your calories burned according to how hard your heart is working.

I must confess I myself don't actually own a HRM (yet), so I usually check my workout burns on a couple of different sites and go with whatever is the lower reading. 850 calories for fast walking/slow jogging for only 23 minutes sounds very high to me, but then again you do burn more calories if your body mass is bigger. Did you set your age, height and weight on the treadmill?

Michelle_Murray

I agree with Najay. A heart rate monitor is the only way to get a true calorie burn count. Machines usually over estimated the amount you burn. MFP is usually a little closer to the actual amount, but an HRM is the way to go. They are relatively inexpensive now too.

scubasuenc

The treadmill burn seems high. I started at over 300 lbs and there is no way I would have burned 850 calories in 23 minutes of any activity. I have a HRM and have found that MFPs calories for walking to be pretty close to what the HRM says as long as I am not walking on hills or an incline. Then MFP is a little lower than the HRM.

Your walk works out to an average at 2.5 mph, MFPs 215 sounds pretty realistic for 23 minutes.

mgibbons22

Go with MFP (sorry). When I was 306 lbs two months ago, MFP and a couple of other apps all sindicated walking is about ten calories per minutes. Or, as Najay said and others will certainly say, get a heart rate monitor. Related apps like MapMyFitness work well (it interfaces with MFP), and FitBits are popular, which also interfaces with MFP.

butlersoft

HRM is your best way to go (as others have said).

When I was at my heaviest at 312lbs, I'd Jog 1 miles in about 16-17 minutes and burn upto 150 calories.

I'm down to 240lbs now and an 11 minute mile is just under 100 calories.

I'm lucky if I can burn 850 calories in an hour and a quarter comprising a 5 mile run, weights, and additional cardio on the cross-trainer.

jesswithsuccess

Thanks everyone for the replies! I'll definitely look into getting a HRM! Its disappointing but I'm not out to impress anyone so I want to be realistic. I never eat back my calories burned anyway so its not like it would have changed my eating habits. But I'll fix it for sure

dixiewhiskey

Neither get a HRM

dawnfto

Another fan of the HRM. I bought a Polar FT4 just over a year ago and that's all I need for a accurate calorie burn.

celticempress

I have a Fitbit, so I know what I burned, but prior to that I would go with whatever the Treadmill said. Reason being, the Treadmill knows what you exerted to get that number exactly. You have to take so many steps in order to get it to do that, unless you have your dog doing it for you, in which case we know that's not going on. That's my advice. Fitbit generally tells me I'm a few calories off of the machine either higher or lower depending on my personal output.

caseye98

Yes, def get a heart rate monitor. LOVE my Polar FT60.