Magnetic Resistance Exercise Bike

gawj1512

Hi

I currently weigh 162lb and I am new to 'real' exercise, I only walk for weight loss, but recently my husband bought a home treadmill, which I don't enjoy at all and when I do 10-11 minutes at a maximum of 6.5kph (all I can manage in my current state of fitness) all I burn (according to the display) is about 60 calories at most. This is a mixture of fast walking and slow running.

So today I bought a magnetic resistance exercise bike and on level 1, I did 10 minutes and it said I had burned 125 calories!? How do? It doesn't even know my weight? I then did a further 5 minutes at resistance level 2 and burned a further 75 calories. Does this sound right to you? Too good to be true? There are no options in the exercise database here for the magnetic resistance bikes, only 'stationary bike' to which I enter 10 minutes and it shows up with around 85 calories burned.

I could use some advice, as I'm not sure what to log really. Trust the bike, or trust the database here?

Thanks in advance, gawjx

Azdak

Equipment manufacturers can program the machine to display anything they want.

In this case they are likely basing the calories on some theoretical equation that translates "speed" into calories. That type of calculation is bogus on a real road bike. On a stationary bike, it is a fantasy number.

gawj1512

Ok. So I did 3.2km in 10 minutes, which equated to 12mph. This is tricky. How am I going to record my calories burned?

sdevan45

That bike is trying to tell you in one example that you burned 12.5 calories a minute. Ain't no way. You can work your tail off measured with an HRM and show about 7-8 calories a minute. You need to find another way to estimate your burn, I think.

gawj1512

The exercise database on MFP gives me a burn of 84cals in 10 minutes at 'moderate on stationary bike' at 12mph. Does that sound more like it? I really want to log my exercise realistically as possible, but being a newbie to exercise and having only ever logged my walking (which I work out using time and distance), this is quite new to me.

gawj1512

Anyone else able to comment on this topic please?

I've had some people say go by the manufacturers display, others say not.