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Exercise Calories Burned

emstgm
emstgm Posts: 117 Member
edited October 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
Help! I need advise / understanding about exercise calories burned. I am 5'10" and weigh 218 lbs. I have a Life Fitness Elliptical machine at home I have been using it steadily since joining MFP in Nov 2011. In these few months, I have increased in duration and intensity, and in calories burned.

After a typical 45 minute workout, I burn about 450 calories. Today I burned 500 in 50 minutes. This is what the machine says. I can tell if I'm having an off day and seem to have low energy, I struggle to burn at that rate, and a 40 min workout will yield me 350 calories. (I can tell I'm not working out at the same intensity.)

My big question: When I plug the minutes into MFP for Elliptical trainer, a 50 minute workout is 754 calories. My machine says it was 500. I have even gone to other web sites for calories burned by exercise, and they are also high. Personally, I don't want to log 754 calories, and then eat back that much if in fact I have only burned 500. On the other hand, if I really did burn more, am I eating enough? (I generally eat my exercise calories after reading many posts here.)

I see other people burn '750 calories doing 35 minutes of ellipical'. WOW. That's a lot - how come I can't do that?? :frown:
How are these numbers generated? Am I right to take the number from my machine, or should I use MFP's number?

Replies

  • m0dizzle
    m0dizzle Posts: 101 Member
    I'm curious about this too...
  • rockerbabyy
    rockerbabyy Posts: 2,258 Member
    if you enter your age and weight into the machine, id use that number. im not sure how mfp calculates cals burned but its off for me too ( i use a hrm). sometimes its over, sometimes under.
  • emstgm
    emstgm Posts: 117 Member
    Oh, I have another question ... so what if someone's toodling along for 45 minutes on level one and burns about 150 calories. MFP, or other calculators don't consider the intensity of the workout. So far this is the only exercise that I do, but if I start doing other things, I'll have no idea what I'm burning.
  • rockerbabyy
    rockerbabyy Posts: 2,258 Member
    Oh, I have another question ... so what if someone's toodling along for 45 minutes on level one and burns about 150 calories. MFP, or other calculators don't consider the intensity of the workout. So far this is the only exercise that I do, but if I start doing other things, I'll have no idea what I'm burning.
    thats why i bought a heart rate monitor :) its still not 100% accurate, but its pretty dang close
This discussion has been closed.

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