X-box Kinect: Your Shape Fitness Evolved and Accurate Calori

leanne402

Hi There

Aplogies if this question has been asked and answered before but I can't find it.

I've been working out for 3 weeks (very unfit with 45lbs to loose), going to the gym for 60mins cardio 3 times a week and 30-40 min walks per day.

I thought I'd mix it up a bit and got out my dusty You Shape Fitness Evolved for the x-box. I did 30 mins and it nearly killed me, breathless, sweating, wishing I was dead etc etc. Thing is, the calorie counter said I'd only burned 157 calories, whereas other sites say it was probably closer to 280.

Does anybody know how accurate the calorie tracker is on this game? 157 seems a little low considering I've just nearly killed myself ;-)

Oh and I know I should get a HRM.....but don't have the pennies at the minute.

Thanks a mil :-)

evelynnalfred

I'm not sure it's accurate because I know that I am super tired once I finish working out, versus when I walk on the treadmill for the same amount of time.

jbmccain

Im in complete agreement with the inaccuracy. Im not tooting my whistle, but I've been a 60-70 mile per week runner for quite a while, and i strength train 3-4 times per week. I use runkeeper and this app to manage my fitness. I wanted to rest my legs for a few weeks, so i started "Your Shape" this week. A 10 mile run takes me 1hr 12min on average and burning 1132 calories each morning then 45 min strength burning approx. 135 calories every other day. 1 hr and 15 minutes on your shape yielded 237 calories today doing the high intensity workouts and i was whipped. I admit i was using muscles in a way i dont normally use them, but still. Im not buying that count. I'd rather have run those 10 miles today and felt less guilty for eating those ice cream sandwiches after dinner!

alisonrowemckenzie

The 2012 version seems to log half the calories the original game did for the same workout. Did 13 minutes of cardio boxing and burnt off 45 calories. On the original game it was usually about 100 calories. I have no idea which is correct but from reading various comments everyone seems to agree Fitness Evolved 2012 seems to be extremely low.

chezjuan

I have actually been doing some research on this recently, specifically with regards to YS: FE 2012. It is definitely underreporting the calories burned.

First off, it seems there is a bug with the 2012 game where if you do a class (like Boot Camp) with both standing and floor exercises, it can stop recording your calories after you switch from floor back to standing. To fix this, you need to actually leave the view field, let the game pause, then step back in to resume. One time I did a 12 minute boot camp and it said I burned 30 calories for the whole thing. The next time I did it, I did the step-out-and-pause thing and it continued counting and the whole routine was almost 90 calories.

To counter the bug, just last weekend I picked up a heart rate monitor so I don't have to stop the routines because of the bug (and because it is nice here and I plan on doing some outside running, cycling, etc.). After a 30 - 40 minute session, YS:FE 2012 would say anywhere from 150 - 250 calories, and the HRM would show between 500 - 600 calories. Checking the HRM numbers using online calculators of calories by heart rate, the HRM was in the range of accurate (+/- 10 calories or so).

So I decided to do an experiment to see if I could figure out why. For each YS: FE routine I did, I noted down the starting and ending HRM calorie count and subtracted the starting to get the calorie estimate for that routine. I compared it to YS: FE's onscreen numbers. For routines where my heart rate was in the range of 90-110 bpm, the numbers were very close - generally within a calorie or two). For routines, like boot camp, where my heart rate was higher (middle of my range or nearing the max), the calories were way off (one boot camp routine was 88 from YS: FE, and 105 on the HRM). It seems that, lacking a heart rate measurement, YS: FE 2012 is calculating all exercises I do within the first range, while the HRM is calculating based on the amount of time spent in each of it's three ranges.

So now I just go by what my HRM says, rather than by the calories reported in the game.

TL;DR: It is definitely low, and using an HRM would help with accuracy.