Beware of calories burned...

Dave198lbs

regarding the elliptical machines,,,,,a friend was working at a health club and said the ellipticals are the most popular machine ..says they are about the easiest but also that they giive high false readings on calories burned....said it is common for ellipticals to give false high numbers on cals burned

PedalHound

Even HRMs are only a best guess. And they're a pretty good best guess but it's important to keep that in mind. As for how I got the other calculations, it's just realizing that your exercise calories that you EAT shouldn't include the calories that you would have burned if you hadn't worked out. You wouldn't just take the same block of time and eat 20 extra cals for every 10 minutes that passes so you shouldn't do that when you DO work out.
And I'll second that about elliptical machines. I'm a personal trainer and the bottom line is just don't trust them.

I bought the polar f4 and purchased the f6 2 weeks later. def worth the extra $ :bigsmile:

songbyrdsweet

a hrm was my best investment in this process!! I have a Polar F6

AGREED!!! I LOVE my F6!

def the best investment!
I just logged my ellip cals.
MFP gave me 338
Ellip gave me 388
HRM-230!!
( I have to wonder if it actually reduces the total by your RHR)

Okay I'm answering this with a rudimentary concept of the conversation and question LOL :laugh:

If the elliptical has your age, weight, height, gender, resting HR, and working HR, it will give you the same values as your heart rate. If not, it won't, because it will have to use a different equation to figure out the calories burned.

So the HRM isn't really reducing anything, it's just a better estimate than the elliptical. The elliptical probably just works off of METs, and there are other more accurate equations out there that use your VO2 and stuff, which a lot of Polars estimate based on your HR. But notice that I say the word 'estimate' a lot.

slieber

I looked at an article in this month's consumer reports mag and they happened to have HRMs in there. The Polar F6 wasn't given a very good rating (although being in that particular article meant it wasn't godawful). The rating was about 73% with a negative one for ease of use.

I bought the Timex Personal Trainer SG971 online today for about $50. It's a wrist display with a chest strap. It had the highest rating of all the HRMs.

The mag's out this month and still on the shelves. Has ratings on a load of fitness equipment.

weezie79

I have a polar weight management 22 (WM22). I was wondering whether when it gives you calories burned, it automatically subtracts the "resting calories" to give a net... or is that just wishful thinking? :blushing: