Calories Burned

yorkienme
yorkienme Posts: 3
in Fitness and Exercise
Roomie is doing myfitnesspal with me. He walked 3 miles on the treadmill today, for 60 minutes, at 3 mph. He earned 500+ calories. (He weighs 22.) He read a BOOK while he walked. The incline was set to 0.0.

I ran a 10:30 minute mile, for 5 miles, on an incline of 2.0 and earned 517 calories. (I weigh 126)

Unfair!! :P

Replies

  • meshashesha2012
    meshashesha2012 Posts: 8,329 Member
    get fatter then you'll burn more calories :laugh:
  • toysbigkid
    toysbigkid Posts: 545 Member
    the bigger you are the more calories you burn so thank your lucky stars your not as big, lol.
  • ezwryder
    ezwryder Posts: 25
    Some folks also like to be conservative in counting the calories they "earn." I used to be ecstatic when I did that length walk and the treadmill reported 500ish calories for the effort. After doing a lot more reading, I've adopted a much more conservative formula that I believe is more accurate.

    Don't know if links will work in this forum, so search Google for "how many calories are you really burning" and look for the article in Runners World. It's a bit of a bummer at first to realize that most machines are giving you your total calories burned and not your net calories (that is, how many extra calories you've expended over just breathing).

    The formula they offer, that I think seems realistic is this:

    Running: Multiply your weight * miles/hour * .65 to calculate your net calories burned
    Walking: Multiply your weight * miles/hour * .3 (yes, that's right .3)

    A 220 lb person walking 3 miles in an hour burns 198 calories, not 500. I am sure there are many debates about formulas, but I find the vast majority of them, including many in MFP, to be way overestimated (in my opinion). So I'm sticking with the more conservative numbers.

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