Calories burned disparities

Marc713

I’m using a Polar PT7 heart rate monitor (which calculates calories burned) and have it setup to my age, gender, and weight. I’m just wondering why there seem to be such large differences between the calories I seem to be burning compared to much of what I see listed on this site by users or by plugging in exercises? I see people listing 420ish calories burned for 70 minutes of working out, doing cardio & abs for instance. When I workout for 70 minutes, I’m burning on average 1050-1100 calories. I know that some people work out with less intensity and/or take breaks between that can affect this, but from looking at the pics, I see people that are ripped, so I doubt they are skimping out much.

My guess is that some people are in much better shape and their heart rate doesn’t elevate as much as mine during the workout and therefore they are expending less energy for similar exercises….anyone have any better info on this?

Lrdoflamancha

There are a lot of variables to attempting to figure this out. A younger, smaller person will burn less calories than us old fat folks. Think about it... It take a lot more calories to move my 242 lb, 62 year old body than some 180 lb 25 year old. So you need to compare apples to apples. So far I am under the impression that your HRM is the best indicator of your true calories burned. If they are using a website to calculate there calories burned then that is just a best guess.

IveLanded

Yep, that sounds like it could be right for a man who is over 200lbs. I burn fewer calories now at 144lbs than I did at 200lbs....by quit a bit. It kind of bums me out, actually. I used to be able to burn so many more calories!!!

But yes.....the more you weigh, the more calories you'll burn for roughly the same exertion as someone exerting themselves the same but moving fewer pounds. And also as you get fitter, your heart rate gets more efficient. If you aren't as fit, your resting heart rate tends to be higher so your work out heart rate will get higher.....again, burning more calories.

Just be careful not to go too high!

Jynus

for the average dude at 155bpm, 70% VO2MAX, they were tested at aprox 560 calories for an hour of exercise.

For someone going full bore out for >1hour intensity, the highest I've seen was aprox 16cal/min for marathon pace. So aprox 1000 calories.

I suppose 1100-1200 is possible assuming you're a very large man and exercising at close to max what a very large man can do for intensity. But I somehow doubt it and it's more likely you set something up wrong and your burn isn't quite that high.

Jynus

Yep, that sounds like it could be right for a man who is over 200lbs. I burn fewer calories now at 144lbs than I did at 200lbs....by quit a bit. It kind of bums me out, actually. I used to be able to burn so many more calories!!!

But yes.....the more you weigh, the more calories you'll burn for roughly the same exertion as someone exerting themselves the same but moving fewer pounds. And also as you get fitter, your heart rate gets more efficient. If you aren't as fit, your resting heart rate tends to be higher so your work out heart rate will get higher.....again, burning more calories.

Just be careful not to go too high!

heartrate doesn't burn calories... just saying.