caloric expenditure at different fitness levels

allybtucker

Hypothetically, you have two identical people, same height, same weight, same gender, but one is fit, and one is out of shape. Would they burn the same amount of calories doing an identical exercise? If you used a heart rate monitor to estimate, the fit person would burn less because their heart rate wouldn't elevate as much. What's the scoop?

512cheangela

It takes less effort for someone with more muscle to do the same task as one that is higher body fat.

erickirb

Hypothetically, you have two identical people, same height, same weight, same gender, but one is fit, and one is out of shape. Would they burn the same amount of calories doing an identical exercise? If you used a heart rate monitor to estimate, the fit person would burn less because their heart rate wouldn't elevate as much. What's the scoop?

This is correct, they would burn different amounts, as the more fit you are the less hard you have to push to do the same thing. That is one of the issues with the way MFP calculates caloric burn. It only takes into account, age, weight, gender, and ignores fitness level, and HR.

A fit person running a 5K will burn less than a non-fit person, but the fit person will do it faster if competing against each other. In this case the fit person may burn more calories per minute, but since they finish faster they will burn less calories overall. If they ran the same speed the unfit person would burn much more than the fit one.

Skylee10

Pure speculation but... let's say you have two engines. Both same weight and dimensions and they are identical in age, however, one engine is efficient and the other engine is for various reasons (that are unrelated obviously to weight, age or dimensions), inefficient.

The less-efficient engine will burn more energy fuel to do the same amount of work that the more-efficient engine uses less energy to complete.

By extension, the engine in your hypothetical is obviously the two human bodies. The fuel is not gasoline but rather calories. The output/work is running a 5K, or lifting weights, whatever.

Just my 2 cents. I am sure someone can show why that is incorrect, ha!

allybtucker

Thanks guys, that was very helpful. The reason I was wondering was becuase of all the charts you see that estimate how many calories you burn doing X exercise, how accurate they are when I'm using them to gauge my daily calorie needs? So not only is my hour of bike riding 12 mph going to burn fewer calories as I get fit, I don't really know how many calories it took in the first place! My inner accountant is getting frustrated... ;-)

MattAxtell

You should get a heart rate monitor. Less than 100 dollars, and it is worth it

allybtucker

I've got one of those, but I didn't know if I should trust those caloric estimates either...