Measuring Calories Burned

Flixie00

I do a fair amount of cardio most days and I have found eating back my calories seems to work well for me, but I have a mental block eating back all my calories when it takes me over 2000 for the day. I would like to get a more acurate reading of what I am burning in the gym to ensure I am neither over or under eating. Ideally I would use a HRM but I have high blood pressure for which I take beta blockers, and HRM's are not recommended in such cases. Should I be using MFP's calculations of what I have burned, or the calculation from the gym equipment I have used? or is there another way that I am not aware of which would give me a more acurate reading? At the moment I take the lower reading and have been consistently losing weight.

gregpack

I have used the bodymedia/bodybugg device to determine my caloric burn. I think it is fairly accurate. However, after about two weeks I gathered most of the data I needed. It would be cool to have a small group of people to split the cost and share the device.

What this device did was confirm what the scale is revealing: You're in a caloric deficit. Just make sure you eat enough that your physical performance doesn't suffer. I went too low for too long (about 2000/day)and started having issues with my immunity system, metabolism, and libido. Eating more food helped.

Congrats on being half way to your goal! I lost about 95 lbs last year. I need to lose another 20, but am currently in caloric maintenance and will likely take most of this year to get that off. Slow and steady wins the race.....

walkinmamma

Yes, same here. I wear a fitmedia device. I agree, once you get a baseline from it, it really just reconfirms what you already know. What I have found is that the numbers from it are closer to the numbers here on myfitnesspal then the numbers on the machines at the gym. I just don't think they take all the potential variables into account.

courtgosvener

I have been wearing mine for 2 weeks and half and got a baseline, however, I am not losing like I did eating 1450 calorie with MFP. It's only been a week technically but I essentially have been eating back "exercise" calories because my burn is about 2600-2900 when i exercise. So I eat about 1600-1900 a day. Granted I had a gain during the holidays. But I was able to pull the gain off faster doing 1450 as opposed to the 1600-1900 I am doing when I have a high burn day.