exercise calories on mfp

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gregsonevans
gregsonevans Posts: 232 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
No wonder my weight loss was slower than I would have hoped, I have been using sports tracker to monitor my bike rides for the last 2 months and it was saying that I was burning roughly a thousand calories for every hour at approx 14mph as I am still over 230 pounds, MFP was giving me roughly the same amount and just about every fitness website I researched also said the same but all these base your fitness on your weight and sex and nothing else, they must assume that because you are fat you have no fitness at all but I have been cycling over 200 miles a week for the last few months so my fitness levels are fairly high.
Today I had my first ride with a heart rate monitor and the results were shocking, I rode for 38.7 miles at just over 14mph and sports tracker said that I burned 3087 calories, MFP gave me 2943 calories but my heart rate monitor only gave me 2097, a massive difference in what I can eat for the day.
Has anyone else had similar problems with these apps or am I doing something wrong again?

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  • kirstylouisethornton
    kirstylouisethornton Posts: 2
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    bump for later
  • DanaLynnMN
    DanaLynnMN Posts: 192 Member
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    bump
  • kirstylouisethornton
    kirstylouisethornton Posts: 2
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    bump
  • PikaKnight
    PikaKnight Posts: 34,971 Member
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    I had wondered about that myself (exercising and wondering if the calorie burn was correct) and finally looked it up a couple weeks ago. I found several articles that said that the only way to get an accurate know how was to use a heart rate monitor and calculate it that way.

    So, one day soon, I plan on getting a really good heart rate monitor so that I can get a much more accurate calories burned per exercise.
  • gregsonevans
    gregsonevans Posts: 232 Member
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    I got lucky by finding a decent second hand one for just 5 pound, a real eye opener though
  • gregsonevans
    gregsonevans Posts: 232 Member
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    Has anyone else had similar problems with exercise apps or sites like this being way too generous with exercise calories?
  • MDWilliams1857
    MDWilliams1857 Posts: 315 Member
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    With me it was the opposite. MFP was telling me a low number and when I started using my Polar F6 it had me burning more calories than MFP was saying.
  • eggfooyumyum
    eggfooyumyum Posts: 42 Member
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    I had the same experience with trackers overestimating calories burned. I got a heart rate monitor (Polar FT7) and it has made all the difference. I'm doing an exercise video challenge with a bunch of MFP members. Some of us are of similar age, weight, etc. I see them giving themselves 2x - 3x the calories burned than I'm getting from my heart rate monitor. If people are eating back even some of their exercise calories, than it would explain any stagnation in weight loss - which as we all know is terribly frustrating. HRM are well worth the investment!
  • gregsonevans
    gregsonevans Posts: 232 Member
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    Are we all in agreement then that a decent hrm is always going to be more accurate?

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