Overestimating Calories Burned

forty3fab

Well for us nontrainers out there who get our numbers from a HRM, are you saying they are all incorrect? My HRM says I can burn over 300 calories in a half hour doing an intermediate/advanced level on my elliptical machine. Should we just not believe these devices that we invested in for our health?

spcopps

Ok I have a question..I tested my HRM the other day (1 minute before my workout) and it said I burned 2.4 calories while sitting still. According to MFP I only burn 1 calorie per minute. How do I know which is correct?? I usually burn about 250 calories according to my HRM working out for 45 minutes (turbo jams) and this is AFTER subtracting 1.4 calories per minutes for BMR. Also how do I KNOW if my HRM is already taking my BMR into account?? My HRM ask for my weight, age, height and sex when setting up for HRM mode My guide doesn't specify this but it does state •Calories burned are based on your age, gender, relative heart rate and total time of exercise. I am at a 1200 calorie day and don't want to go WAY over but also don't want to be WAY under. Any help appreciated.

PLEASE somebody help me with this..I posted the question a few days ago with NO responses..

CallMeMamaBoo

I burn over 1000 almost daily.....

This is how most of my days go....

My morning workout is usually 60 min. on the bike that averages between 500-600 burned

In the evening I do one of my DVD workouts that generally average 300-350 burned
Following that I do another 30-60 minutes of cardio on treadmill or bike for another burn of between 350-600.

And throughout the day, I breastfeed which is another 300-500 burned.

I love my exercise and being a stay at home mom, it's ME time and it's something I look forward to. I can't speak for anyone else but for me, hitting 1000 a day is goal that I set for myself and I am proud to accomplish and I don't really appreciate anyone questioning my abilities. This is MY journey and I reap MY OWN BENEFITS! We all are on a journey to be healthy and fit and I think sometimes it's best to stay focused on ourselves more than what others are doing. But this is just my own opinion. I've seen some outrageous burn totals from some people that might not look like they are capable of such numbers but 3 months ago, I didn't think I was capable of those numbers either and I am. I DON"T look forward to the day that I no longer need to burn those kinds of numbers. I enjoy the challenge.


*I should add that I do use a HRM and I am asthmatic. I don't know if that effects my burn totals or not but it doesn't slow me down like it used to.

shoog883

I totally agree with you Steve! I was wondering the same thing. I was think how the hell are they burning those many calories in less than an hour? I usually run for just under an hour and I usually burn anywhere from 580 to 680 calories. When I saw these high numbers that other were burning, I was worried I wasn't working hard enough, although I really felt like I was. Thanks for clearing this up and making me feel better about my work-outs...which I am actually really happy with.

hoagieb

I am pretty athletic and I burn around 90 calories in 20 minutes on the elliptical at a pretty good pace with hills. Running a 10K at a 10 minute mile I'll burn around 520 calories, I don't get into the 1000 range unless I'm doing a 1/2 marathon or like distance. I like the nike+ shoe chip, it seems to calculate calories burned with distance / time pretty accurately.

I don't think it matters what anyone puts down for calories burned; however, for me I have to be pretty exact or I will eat too much; however, it is a bummer to think that a whole spinning class equals, like 1/2 donut!

shoog883

I burn over 1000 almost daily.....

This is how most of my days go....

My morning workout is usually 60 min. on the bike that averages between 500-600 burned

In the evening I do one of my DVD workouts that generally average 300-350 burned
Following that I do another 30-60 minutes of cardio on treadmill or bike for another burn of between 350-600.

And throughout the day, I breastfeed which is another 300-500 burned.

I love my exercise and being a stay at home mom, it's ME time and it's something I look forward to. I can't speak for anyone else but for me, hitting 1000 a day is goal that I set for myself and I am proud to accomplish and I don't really appreciate anyone questioning my abilities.

I don't think anyone was questioning people actually burning 1000 calories. It was more about people saying they burn 1000 calories in only an hour. It sounds like you work out for more than an hour so it makes sense that you're burning 1000 calories. I didn't read all the feed, so my apologies if you did feel like someone was questioning you. I also have to say, your work-out endeavors are awesome and how nice it is that you have the opportunity/time to accomplish all that you accomplish! Nice job!

amymeenieminymo

I burn over 1000 almost daily.....

This is how most of my days go....

My morning workout is usually 60 min. on the bike that averages between 500-600 burned

In the evening I do one of my DVD workouts that generally average 300-350 burned
Following that I do another 30-60 minutes of cardio on treadmill or bike for another burn of between 350-600.

And throughout the day, I breastfeed which is another 300-500 burned.

I love my exercise and being a stay at home mom, it's ME time and it's something I look forward to. I can't speak for anyone else but for me, hitting 1000 a day is goal that I set for myself and I am proud to accomplish and I don't really appreciate anyone questioning my abilities. This is MY journey and I reap MY OWN BENEFITS! We all are on a journey to be healthy and fit and I think sometimes it's best to stay focused on ourselves more than what others are doing. But this is just my own opinion. I've seen some outrageous burn totals from some people that might not look like they are capable of such numbers but 3 months ago, I didn't think I was capable of those numbers either and I am. I DON"T look forward to the day that I no longer need to burn those kinds of numbers. I enjoy the challenge.


*I should add that I do use a HRM and I am asthmatic. I don't know if that effects my burn totals or not but it doesn't slow me down like it used to.

The OP was talking about when people say they burned 1000 calories in an hour or less. According to your breakdown, you're burning 1000 calories over the span of a 2-3 hour work out, PLUS breastfeeding. Good job, BTW!

stevemcknight

Well for us nontrainers out there who get our numbers from a HRM, are you saying they are all incorrect? My HRM says I can burn over 300 calories in a half hour doing an intermediate/advanced level on my elliptical machine. Should we just not believe these devices that we invested in for our health?

They are for the most part accurate, but a couple problems with them. They don't count after burn (calories burned for the following 48 hours after HIIT or weight training workouts) and they add in the amount of calories you burn while just standing still.

In general, I think it's safer to use them to see if you're pushing to your goal HR. I wear mine on days I'm doing cardio and don't feel like working out. I just glance at it to see if I'm around 165. If I'm not, I push harder, if I am - well, I still push harder. It's basically a rubber band on my wrist that keeps me thinking about pushing to my max. As for calorie burn, take the number it says and underestimate it. You don't want to over eat due to calories that you didn't burn additionally to your normal burn.

MisdemeanorM

The Tru Striders at my gym tell me I burn 800+ calories in 45 minutes. My HRM tells me closer to 400 and that even (per my BODYMEDIA FIT) overestimates burn a bit. MFP overestimates the burn too, but some people who have a lot to lose burn a lot more than I do per hour.

Shamrock40

I do not want this to be so difficult Please do not make me do math! LOL

I'm with you. I enter in my exercise using the MFP estimator (making sure my weight is accurate first,) but then I usually shave off a couple of hundred calories because a lot of times it seems a bit excessive. Then I rarely eat back all of my exercise calories. Just to be on the safe side.

I've lost 27 lbs and 13.75 inches in 10 weeks, so my funky finagling must be working.

DawnOf1969

I always deduct what I call my "breathing" calories before I log my burn from my HRM. These are the calories I would burn just by sitting and breathing. After doing the math I burn right at 1 cal a minute just by being alive.

pandafoo

recently i also started subtracting from my HRM value the number of calories that i would have burned at rest. i want to be as accurate as possible and not end up overeating.

for the two people who asked about the MFP vs HRM values being different for calories burned at rest per minute, i'd just take the avg of the 2. each HRM company uses different formulas to calculate calories burned, and i don't know if BMR is taken into account.

sometimes i do wonder how people can burn so many calories. at first i thought only very overweight people could burn that much. but yesterday when i was taking part in a challenge at my gym to see which team could burn the most calories in one hour, there was one extremely fit woman on my team who burned 1150 calories! i was completely shocked. i burned 600+ calories in comparison.

but my trainer reminded me that the higher your VO2 level is (the amt of oxygen your body can consume while exercising at its highest intensity), the more calories you will burn. as people get more fit, they'll be able to exercise at higher intensities for longer. my V02 level is only in the 30th percentile, so i will burn much fewer calories than the woman on my team.

so maybe there are some people who can't possibly be burning as many calories as MFP or their HRM estimates, but perhaps there are others whose values are closer to reality.

CallMeMamaBoo

When I track my breastfeeding, I put it as 1 min of exercise. I can only imagine what people think when they see I burned 300 calories in 1 minute. Maybe it's not as simple as just reading the news feed.

And I wasn't offended by any means, I was just stating that sometimes, just sometimes, I see way too many postings on people questioning the abilities of others when maybe it's just best left alone and that time and energy can be focused on themselves instead of others. Just an observation. Not saying it's wrong to point these things out BUT....everyone is so different, I just don't waste time trying to understand them when it's hard enough crunching my own numbers!

melzteach

I usually burn 350 - 600 with my P90X workouts, it just depends on the workout. On days I do doubles it's over 1,000 but just by a little bit. On cardio days I push myself as far as I possibly can.
Now I have never had the misfortune of running from a bear but I imagine it would get your heart pumping and burning a lot of calories. Maybe there is a dvd out there about bears chasing you?

Dom_m

I've been using my HRM in conjunction with MFP for about a year. Typical cardio results for me are:

1 hour running = approx 900-950 calories
45min cycling = approx 650 calories

My heart rate usually averages about 80% and usually peaks around 93-95%
My calorie burn at rest is around 160 calories per hour with an average heart rate of 28% (sitting up, but still).

I record the total calories I burn when I exercise and ignore the double counting due to forgone resting. To balance that, I set my target deficit a little higher than it really needs to be. I typically do 2 hours exercise each day (at the moment I'm in training for an ultramarathon, so I do more intensity and more frequent rest days which makes things a bit difficult) and often burn around 1400. Usually 2/3 of that is from one hour of higher intensity work, and the other third from an hour of lower intensity work.

I stuck with this for about 9 months last year and my weight perfectly tracked my expectations (I recorded daily caloric deficits as well as weight, skinfold, girth etc) and am happy to provide the data if anyone cares.

I then stopped the routine for 3 months due to reasons I don't need to go into and ended up putting on about 10kg.
I've now resumed the above routine for 2.5 months and am observing exactly the same results as I did last year.

If I wasn't burning almost 1,000 calories per hour during cardio workouts, as you said, I wouldn't see the weight loss that I would expect from my calculations. But since I do see that weight loss, I have to conclude that I regularly burn around 1,000 calories per hour by putting in around 85% effort.

I can't say this is the same for everyone, but I'm quite sure its possible for some.

123456654321

**double post**

123456654321

We've been through this a few times with someone posting topics about this. I believe last time we came to the consensus .....who cares? If they are over estimating their calories they won't be losing. If they really are burning that much, good for them! Either way, it doesn't effect us. I don't think people are lying about it, I think they are taking the calories the machine says they burned and the calories on here are really over estimated too. But I know a guy on here who logs off his machine over 1000 calorie burns and he lost over 120 pounds and he's fit. I wouldn't waste my time trying to figure out if peoples calorie burns are right.

Spitfirex007

I just ball park mine somewhere between 500-800. (1 hour o P90X)

GlutenFreeWench

Very interesting discussion!

I wear a bodybugg 24/7, so I always just put what it tells me I burned, I never eat back my full calories, and it's been working out so far. But yes, I've always wondered what's going on when people are doing when they end up with calorie burns that high:)

Hotbysummer

well, i log what my machine (NordicTrack E7 sv Front Drive Elliptical) says, 1,000, 700, whatever. I eat well, and stay active. The results are there, so i don't think anymore about it. The info is great, but I am already putting so much thought and effort going into healthy eating, and working out that worrying about whether or not my calories are completely accurate doesn't make or break the deal.