How many calories does an eliptical really burn????

mhotch

I agree with the 30% less calorie burn. I consistently burn almost 75-100 calories less than the machine calculations, during a 25-30 minute run.

polyesterchesters

I am on my elliptical everyday for 45-60 minutes. Today I was on for 60 and it said I burned 1400 calories, I use the imput here on when I log in the workout and for 60 min, it says 676 calories. I am more apt to believe the latter.

pannellkat

I use the elliptical at the gym with the swinging arms. I do not have a heart rate monitor so I am only telling you what the machine reading says after inputting my age and weight.

I move between 4 minutes of level 4 and 4 minutes of level 9 for about 30 minutes and the end result is generally about 320-340 calories burned. I can totally see how an hour on elliptical could give you 700 calories burned. I guess it depends on your current weight, intensity and speed.

I try to aim for burning 11-12 calories per minute on elliptical.

leeslim4life

get a HRM & get one with a chest strap. I have a Polar F6 & it's great. Good luck.

I have the same one & I LOVE IT!!!!!

IRONMANT2015

Thank you to all who, replied to my post. It helped out so much. I have decided to go get a heart rate moniter. The machine I use at the gym does not have one. I think it will help out knowing how to calculate that in.

THANKS AGAIN!!!

Ixajaxi

I've been looking for a job for the last three months and my only way out everyday is to hit the gym hard. I am a male, weigh198 pounds and have had bad stomach fat which I gained at my previous company where we ordered lunch and dinner from our restaurant of choice in New Orleans. Anyways, the last three months were my time to redeem myself from this sinful eating.

I hit the gym everyday religiously for the last three months. One of the things I used to do all the time was the eliptical (in the past). In the last three months, I reduced the eliptical to 1 to 2 days to not burn my muscle. So here are the stats.... again... dont know if this is accurate: I try to match my distance and the calories burnt. For example, today I burned 805 calories after covering a distance of 8.2 miles in 60 minutes plus the 5 minutes of cool down period. Almost everytime, I try to cover 400 calories/4 miles in 30 minute increments. I dont know how many calories i am really burning (and cant really afford a heart rate monitor right now) but I do know that I push myself to the limit. My heartrate is usually over 170. I try to spend 2 hours a day at the gym and on a cardio day, after an hour of cardio, I spend 30 minutes on abs and 10-20 minutes in the Sauna to top it off. My brother is a marathon runner and he says that typically, we burn about 100 calories for every mile we run/exercise. Hope this helps.

Queen_JessieA

I just checked the elliptical on here and it says just over 600 calories for 30 minutes.

According to the gym machines I use, it is always about 200 less than what is estimated here on MFP. And I work out hard on it for an hour!! I get up to about 700-750 doing an hour plus 5 min. cooldown.

9jenn9

My heart rate monitor, along with a good pair of sneakers, is my most valuable fitness tool. Calories burned are different for everybody. It depends on your age, current weight, gender and level of fitness. A gym machine (and calorie burning charts) don't take those things into account. On average, I burn up to a third less than my treadmill estimates. Since I eat back most of my exercise calories, I don't want to use a calorie estimate. I need to have an accurate number.

If I ate back the number of calories the gym machines tell me that I burned, I could eat at McDonald's everyday. Or have a giant ice cream sundae. Sadly, the treadmill lies.

tndejong

i have one at home and at the gym. both are just over 300 calories for every half an hour. but i think it depends on your heart rate and weight too. i am a bigger gal. so i may burn more then you.

jrodriguez2315

I don't think that's right buddy... Yes, you are a fit (as I can see from your profile picture), however, your thinking is quite flawed. The 2 calories that your body uses at rest are there regardless of what you do. So even if you are a couch potato, you are burning 2 calories (not necessarily a fact; a couch potato could be burning more or less) per minute. Those calories are for maintenance of your body (heat, respiratory functions, etc.). That said, gym equipment don't calculate your BMR (measure in kJ/kg or calories / kg). Gym equipment that have the option to enter your weight and age are more or less reading a simple interpolated chart or following an empirical correlation for those of your age and weight. No two humans are the same (even identical twins), so the amount of calories burned between two people of the same age and weight will NEVER be the same. We can only estimate.

In fact, you are counting your BMR twice anyways. When you don't eat the same amount of calories you work out.
example: daily calories = 2500 - 500 exercise - 500 not eaten = 1500 cal / day
The not eaten calories are calories that your body needs that you didn't consume. They were still used however.

Since energy must be conserved, the calories come from your fat reserves and muscle breakdown.

- JR, scientist

hlanus

I usually do elliptical and I get weird results, sometimes up to 900 calories even when I use the same routine. I understand that these machines aren't very accurate, so I tried a different one. Only 529 according to this, but I also did a different program and lower resistance. Does the resistance make a significant difference? If yes, how should I calculate it?

flatlndr

According to my HRM, I burn ~450 cals in my 35 min workout. But my weight, speed, intensity and resistance levels are different from yours. If you want reasonable numbers, get a HRM.

Francl27

hlanus wrote: »

I usually do elliptical and I get weird results, sometimes up to 900 calories even when I use the same routine. I understand that these machines aren't very accurate, so I tried a different one. Only 529 according to this, but I also did a different program and lower resistance. Does the resistance make a significant difference? If yes, how should I calculate it?

Yes resistance makes the biggest difference. I'm not sure how accurate it's been for me either, I need to replace the battery of my HRM but frankly I'm scared to see how many less calories I burn (but at least I can measure my progress using the machine's calories, so it's not totally useless). So far my best on the machine is 630 calories for 61 minutes, which isn't bad considering I'm 133 pounds and 36, it's really high intensity when I get that high though... but I guess it's probably closer to 400 or something

Sued0nim

I get around 200 for 20 mins at level 16 resistance (of 25 levels) on my HRM...

JonathanLepoff

I use a heart rate monitor for all my exercise. Figure you are actually burning 1/2 to 2/3 the number of calories the machine indicates

RibStabsHeart

This is exactly why I try to not eat back my calories -- I log what the machine says, but take it with a huge grain of salt. I may not know how many calories I burned accurately, but I DO know I got my heart rate up for 30 mins and did some weight lifting afterwards, and that's good enough for me.

_Terrapin_

jrenaldo wrote: »

I had been wondering the same thing. I have read that the calories burned readout on cardio equipment is over estimated up to 30%. I did an experiment with my heart rate monitor and it said I burned 386 calories in an hour while the machine said 650. So unfortunately, I have had to increase the amount of cardio I do to reach my 800 calorie goal. Definitely not the news I was looking for!

General rule of thumb is 1 mile=100 calories. So walk 8, run 8 you get about 800 calories. Again a general rule. Ellip I would suggest either 1. Asking the gym how it is calibrated OR 2. Use it as a guideline. Good luck.

cwolfman13

As a general guideline, I never used a factor greater than 10 calories per minute. It is really hard to burn 10 calories per minute more than you otherwise would have doing nothing. 10 calories per minute is pretty much a level of effort for which holding a conversation would be next to impossible.

In my experience, most of my cardio workouts come in more like an 8 on average, even though there may have been points where I was at a 10...I'm generally not at a sustained 10 for an hour.

Missjulesdid

Elliptical is my favorite cardio machine. It just seems to easy to me to be giving the numbers that it says it burns. When I was 340 pounds it was telling me that I was burning 900 in 45 minutes. Now, yes, I would put up the resistance on it and really push through the whole time, but no way was I actually burning that much. I kind of think maybe with that machine, heavier people can do it EASIER because all we have to do is shift our weight from side to side and the pedals almost go up and down by themselves..... and of course if it's EASIER, then you're not burning as many calories! I still did it to get my heart rate up without trashing my fragile joints but, I didn't put too much stock in the calories burned.

Francl27

cwolfman13 wrote: »

As a general guideline, I never used a factor greater than 10 calories per minute. It is really hard to burn 10 calories per minute more than you otherwise would have doing nothing. 10 calories per minute is pretty much a level of effort for which holding a conversation would be next to impossible.

In my experience, most of my cardio workouts come in more like an 8 on average, even though there may have been points where I was at a 10...I'm generally not at a sustained 10 for an hour.

I definitely wouldn't be able to hold a conversation when I'm on the elliptical. Man I really need to fix my HRM... I'm getting curious now!