Which is more accurate? MFP? Or the exercise machine?

adriana90

Whenever I log exercise in mfp it says that I burned a lot more calories than the exercise machine says that I did. Which is more accurate? And which should I follow?

ValerieMartini2Olives

Either invest in a heart rate monitor, or if you can't afford one, take the average of MFP and the machine, then subtract 20%. That will give you a realistic figure.

sarbar71

The above advice is good! I finally got an HRM and found that my actual calories burned in an hour on the elliptical was 150 lower than the Elliptical machine or MFP indicates. This site logs exercise very high, and evidently, so does the elliptical machine!!

marnet12

Either invest in a heart rate monitor, or if you can't afford one, take the average of MFP and the machine, then subtract 20%. That will give you a realistic figure.

Thanks, that sounds about right, but I couldn't come up with a formula!

Amy911Gray

Figure out how the machine measures the calorie burn. Mine measures by distance and time. I've only had it for 8 months but glad to know. MFP measures by weight and time and doesn't account for the distance.

californiagirl2012

Neither is accurate which is why I ignore it. I've always ignored it and it hasn't killed me yet and I have not lost muscle mass, in fact I have gained. People can not like what I say all they want but the proof is in the pudding.

BinaryPulsar

I don't use exercise machines anymore, but when I did it was surprisingly exactly the same on the machine and on mfp. Now, I just eat a steady amount and increase by 100 or 200 (more if hungry) on exercise days. But, I am maintaining and not trying to lose.

Edited to add: Wow, the lady above me looks amazing!!!

lederermc

I bought an elliptical machine last March when I weighed about 215 lb. The first time I used it the machine reported ~650 calories in 45 minutes and MFP calculated about the same amount of calories. I have since lost 25 lbs and I have increased the elliptical program intensity so that the elliptical now says I burn about 850 calories in 45 minutes. The elliptical calorie calculator is hard-coded and based on a weight of 185 lbs (as per customer support). The MFP estimators does not take into account what level of resistance and incline the elliptical is set to. I'm inclined to just stick with the machines calorie estimations.

Cyclink

A heart rate monitor that knows your weight, body fat percentage, and VO2max will give you a reasonably accurate (within 10%) calorie count. Others give you a less accurate (within 40%) count, which is on par with the machine or MFP..

Without going into a long treatise about how your heart works and why it throws off the calorie counts in major ways...HRMs have a lot of good uses for maintaining the intensity that you want for intervals or for longer sustained efforts and for recording efforts over time, they tend to give calorie counts that are quite high.

lederermc

As a follow up - I have since purchased a Wahoo HR which indicated calories burned are 65% as reported on Elliptical machine.

wanttolose40lbs

My elliptical says I burn 525 calories in 30 minutes and my HRM says 300 calories.My HRM monitor has all my info where as the elliptical doesn't