Things that make you go...Hmmmm....(outrageous calorie burn)

allifantastical

I go by what MFP tells me. I am in the market for a HRM but don't have it yet, unfortunately, at this point, that's all I can go by.

RobynLB

I have an HRM and burn around 900 cal with 45 minutes of running and and doing martial arts for an hour and a half I burn over a 1000. Would you consider that outrageous?

Are you running a six minute mile? If not, it's probably outrageous. Martial arts for an hour an a half sounds right to me though, if it's a challenging conditioning class.

ironanimal

Apparently I burned over 2600 calories driving for 12 hours.
When I went shopping with the girlfriend for 9 hours (in one shopping centre...) I had supposedly burned over 3000 calories.

No, I did not eat those calories back.

sug_plum

There have been times that MFP has logged some ridiculous calories burned for me. I just don't eat them back, or I only eat a small portion of them back. I only log the exercise that I do to log the exercise, not to get more calories to eat.
I have asked for an HRM for Christmas (which given that I suffer from SVT) would be the best thing for me so I can track my heart rate anyhow.

This ^^

MyM0wM0w

People who add Cleaning, heavy, vigorous effort for 2 hours for a 500+ calorie burn and posted under it comments like "At least cleaning my house burned calories!"

kscott2008

I weigh 165.

According to MFP if I run at 6mph for 80 minutes (which is nothing, and excluding my warm up and cool down and the calisthenics I do here and there along the path) I will burn 1003 calories.

Now, when I weighed 220 pounds and I ran 6 mph for 60 minutes (which I did), I burned 1003 calories.

So I lost 55 pounds and according to MFP I now have to run 20 minutes longer to get the same burn.

I underestimate my burns on MFP so that the judgmental btches who would rather critique how I exercise and what I do or do not do with my body than actually exercise and go do something positive and active - will leave me the hell alone

Or I just put "1 calorie".

I sincerely feel that getting in shape is something that is forever and undeniably my own business.

And defining what is your own business is part of falling in love with yourself, which more people should do instead of pick each other apart instead.

^ Thread over. Boom.

Amen. No ones business.

iWaffle

From this morning.



I should note that I only ran for 56 minutes. The rest was just walking.

Seeing your height and weight, taking average v02 you would need to be pushing 100% MHR to do this. <not worthy>

Have you set your vo2 on the polar? if so what to?

You can't set the VO2 on the Polar FT7 and no I wasn't pushing 100% MHR. I think I was in the low 170s a few times when I glanced at the watch but probably was averaging around 165 for the entire run. I've hit 184 before a few times running uphill but I don't run at that level normally. I'm doing distance not total speed. These HRMs aren't 100% accurate. They're just supposed to give you a general idea. Don't get hung up on the exact specific total of calories burned. It's just a tool to help you calculate what you need to eat. During my runs I keep an eye on the heart rate to see what zone I'm running in. You don't always "feel" your pace but the heart rate lets you know if you're there or should be pushing yourself more.

By the way I'm not tracking calories to lose weight. I'm tracking to make sure I eat enough to make up for what I burn running. I know it's not perfect but it seems to be fairly accurate. If I don't eat back all of these calories I start dropping weight.

weird_me2

I'm not defensive. I just don't think a 1,000 calories an hour constitutes a big burn unless you weigh 100-120 lbs.It just AMAZES me every time I see a discussion about this lame subject. I will defend anyone who actually is doing the work. I have also caught people lying about their workouts.

Maybe you are missing my point which is WHO REALLY CARES OR KNOWS WHAT SOMEONE ACTUALLY DOES? We can't tell by pics hell we don't even know if it's actually THEIR PICS!!

I have no reason to be defensive. I teach 6 days a week mornings and evenings. When I post a burn I could care less what anyone else thinks. In fact I encourage anyone to come to my class and see how you feel afterwards..lol

And it wasn't being defensive

This is so BS. Marathon runners and tour de france rider top out at UNDER 1k/hour. And they are going at an intensity you can not even laughably approach. The idea of calling them out an not being intense enough just speaks at how truly uneducated you are on this subject and how invalid your opinion is.

16cal/min is around the max effort someone can give sustained. Sure bigger guys can potentially burn more from their larger mass, but they will be slower and less intense to compensate. And will even out in the end. For short durations of say 1 hour max and trained for it, then possibly you can see some larger burns of 20cal/min+. I sure haven't seen any measured though.

Long story short, until you have proof of you in a metabolic chamber of this mythical 1k+ burn you're blathering about, I'm calling serious BS.

I know you think it's got to be almost impossible for people to burn 1000+ calories per hour without working out intensely or being a super athlete, but it's probably actually easier for non-conditioned athletes to achieve this than for conditioned athletes. If a person is out of shape or not conditioned for the activity they are doing, that person will often expend more energy with unnecessary movements and have a higher heart rate. An athlete who has trained for the activity and knows how to achieve the maximum results with the minimum effort (not saying they put in minimum effort, just that they minimize the work they do so that they can perform better and/or longer) will often expend less energy and have a lower heart rate even though they may go much further and faster. If you have two people the same age, height, weight and sex with different fitness levels, the more fit one is likely to burn less calories even if they work out harder.

I found this calculator: http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx which calculates calories burned based weight, age, sex and heart rate. I put in F, 35, 175 lbs once with heart rate of 160 and once with average rate of 190. The person with the average heart rate of 190 would theoretically burn 200 calories more in an hour than the other.

As for the 16 cal/minute being the maximum calories a person can give sustained, then why is it unreasonable to see someone burn 1000 calories in an hour? If a person can sustain this effort as you say, then they should be able to achieve that type of burn over the course of an hour as 16*60 =960 calories per hour.

waldo56

http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx

This closely matches my HRM.

IM now wondering if this is right! I am currently trying to gain a few pounds and am struggling. If a 130 avg heart rate can burn a 1000 cals I would be burning nearly double on my cycle rides that my HRM.

I assumed that as you become more fitter you get more efficient with the same calories... This looks (from what you say) wrong.

This also might be the reason Im not gain as MFP says I should be.

Ah the grand realiziation that most people that lose and then try to gain have that they are undercounting exercise calories....

Pretty rare to hear the "people way overestimate exercise cals" song and dance from people experienced at gaining.

weird_me2

To get an idea from the maths...

To burn over 1000 cals an hour weighing under 180lbs you would need to be pushing over 87% MHR for the whole 60 mins.
to burn over 1000 cals an hour weighing at 100lbs you would need to be pushing over 95% MHR for the whole 60 mins.

I'm a competitive cyclist, I train VERY VERY hard. There is no way I could sustain 95% MHR for 60 mins. 10 - 25mins max!

I am over 270 and I can easily maintain 90% of my MHR for an hour or more. Most of the time I can do that by walking. Granted, I walk at a faster than 4 mph pace and even can maintain a 4 mph pace walking at a very steep incline (20%), but I have no problem sustaining that for an hour. Last time I did the elliptical, I did a hills workout and maintained an average heartrate of 165, which was 88% MHR for 1/2 an hour and didn't feel like I had exercised much at all and still did weights and circuits for another 1/2 hour and treadmill for a few minutes, too. I have a 115 lb friend who is usually about 100% MHR within her first 5 minutes doing the elliptical at 4 mph with low resistance. The reason I can maintain my heart rate that high without going all out is becuase I'm somewhat conditioned, but nowhere near to being an elite athlete. The reason my friends HR gets so high and stays so high is because she has no conditioning at all. After 30 years of inactivity, she's started working out for the first time in her life. A walk at 2mph is brisk for her when 2 mph is ridiculously slow for me and 4 mph is brisk for me. For a conditioned race walker, 4 mph may be super easy and 6 mph may be brisk for them. She could walk 2 miles in an hour, I could walk 4 miles in an hour, and a conditioned walker could walk 6 miles in an hour and if we all weighed the same, we could all theoretically burn the same number of calories if we all kept our heart rates in the same range.

weird_me2

That's awesome.

I am by no means an expert. I try to figure out my cals on MFP but there isn't a place for the elevation of the treadmill. I was told once that jogging on the treadmill needs to be above incline of 1 to be the same as being outside on a flat surface. I try to never have it less than 2. I have walked/jogged through a full movie with the incline at no less than 4 and burned over 1000 cals (per treadmill) but MFP is way off.

Try this website to see what it comes up with. It has treadmill at various speeds and inclines:

http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/calories_burned_list.asp

JustAGirlyGeek

I often wonder the same thing... everyone burns calories differently based on how hard they push themselves so who am I to judge? Best way to really know how much you burn is by using a HRM.

kpbs68

I do my met calculations myself then shave off the time on MFP's exercise entries to have them come out at the real caloric burn totals for my current weight.

MoreBean13

WE can get hung up in the theoretical calorie burns forver- is this possible at that weight? What about this at that body fat? What if you have an abnormally high or low Max HR or VO2max?

Bottom line, log whatever you want for your calorie burns. If you're not gaining or losing weight predictably according to the numbers, consider adjusting your methods. Your weight loss or gain is really the only way you can tell if your burn is appropriate or not- short of being hooked up to a metabolic cart during your runs. HRMs are just a tool- they're not absolute.

If you're not losing the weight you should, one likely problem is that you're overestimating your workout calories. The inexactness is why I never comment on other people's burns unless they're stuck at a plateau and asking for help trying to figure out what could be wrong.

Jynus

I know you think it's got to be almost impossible for people to burn 1000+ calories per hour without working out intensely or being a super athlete, but it's probably actually easier for non-conditioned athletes to achieve this than for conditioned athletes. If a person is out of shape or not conditioned for the activity they are doing, that person will often expend more energy with unnecessary movements and have a higher heart rate. An athlete who has trained for the activity and knows how to achieve the maximum results with the minimum effort (not saying they put in minimum effort, just that they minimize the work they do so that they can perform better and/or longer) will often expend less energy and have a lower heart rate even though they may go much further and faster. If you have two people the same age, height, weight and sex with different fitness levels, the more fit one is likely to burn less calories even if they work out harder.

It's about work performed. And the more fit you are, the better you're able to perform work, thus expend more calories. I know it seems counter intuitive to you, but when you're unfit, you're just utterly unable to maximally exert yourself for any length of time like a trained person can. This is again seen in tour de france riders, they can reach maximal heart rates while competeing that are IMPOSSIBLE for non trained people to reach, and do it for extended peroids of time. More bmp = more calories burned. http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/staging-your-personal-tour-de-france

"The typical Tour de France contestant reaches a maximum heart rate of above 200 beats per minute on a regular basis, compared to almost never for any other segment of the population, says Roll."

I found this calculator: http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx which calculates calories burned based weight, age, sex and heart rate. I put in F, 35, 175 lbs once with heart rate of 160 and once with average rate of 190. The person with the average heart rate of 190 would theoretically burn 200 calories more in an hour than the other.

Yes, I know that higher heartrate means the body has a higher oxygen demand to meet it's cardio energy system needs, thus more calories burned. But the counterpoint is this, good luck any female being able to go for any length of time at 190bpm. Unless they ARE TRAINED. Thats why the better trained you are, the better calorie burns you have,.

As for the 16 cal/minute being the maximum calories a person can give sustained, then why is it unreasonable to see someone burn 1000 calories in an hour? If a person can sustain this effort as you say, then they should be able to achieve that type of burn over the course of an hour as 16*60 =960 calories per hour.

Because thats the tops out level. As in you need to train for it. For untrained, you're unable to exert yourself hard enough to reach that sort of level. Without question the VAST MAJORITY of claims of 1000 calories an hour on this forum are straight up false. (not all, just most)

edit: As an aside, it's interesting that the utter levels of denial people have in order to get overweight are the same demons they seem to have to fight in order to fix their weight. There is prob a good psychological study in there somewhere.

arc918

I can burn 1,000 in an hour and I usually do it once a week as a tempo/steady state run by running 8 miles @ ~ 7:30 pace. That is pretty much my half marathon pace. It is a tough workout for sure.

Here is the trick, you have to be pretty heavy and pretty fast. I'm probably ~ 175 lbs (or so) right now, I think a burn of 125 per mile is reasonable for somebody my size - HRM & MFP agree.

You can call BS if you want, but the race results don't lie. http://athlinks.com/racer/results/35543525

Jynus

I can burn 1,000 in an hour and I usually do it once a week as a tempo/steady state run by running 8 miles @ ~ 7:30 pace. That is pretty much my half marathon pace. It is a tough workout for sure.

Here is the trick, you have to be pretty heavy and pretty fast. I'm probably ~ 175 lbs (or so) right now, I think a burn of 125 per mile is reasonable for somebody my size - HRM & MFP agree.

You can call BS if you want, but the race results don't lie. http://athlinks.com/racer/results/35543525

you're prob forgetting to subtract your BMR. your actual number would be closer to 800.

arc918

I can burn 1,000 in an hour and I usually do it once a week as a tempo/steady state run by running 8 miles @ ~ 7:30 pace. That is pretty much my half marathon pace. It is a tough workout for sure.

Here is the trick, you have to be pretty heavy and pretty fast. I'm probably ~ 175 lbs (or so) right now, I think a burn of 125 per mile is reasonable for somebody my size - HRM & MFP agree.

You can call BS if you want, but the race results don't lie. http://athlinks.com/racer/results/35543525

you're prob forgetting to subtract your BMR. your actual number would be closer to 800.

I'm not a science guy, but I assume MFP is already considering that. In the context of this site, I do not believe people need to adjust burns for BMR.

weird_me2

I know you think it's got to be almost impossible for people to burn 1000+ calories per hour without working out intensely or being a super athlete, but it's probably actually easier for non-conditioned athletes to achieve this than for conditioned athletes. If a person is out of shape or not conditioned for the activity they are doing, that person will often expend more energy with unnecessary movements and have a higher heart rate. An athlete who has trained for the activity and knows how to achieve the maximum results with the minimum effort (not saying they put in minimum effort, just that they minimize the work they do so that they can perform better and/or longer) will often expend less energy and have a lower heart rate even though they may go much further and faster. If you have two people the same age, height, weight and sex with different fitness levels, the more fit one is likely to burn less calories even if they work out harder.

It's about work performed. And the more fit you are, the better you're able to perform work, thus expend more calories. I know it seems counter intuitive to you, but when you're unfit, you're just utterly unable to maximally exert yourself for any length of time like a trained person can. This is again seen in tour de france riders, they can reach maximal heart rates while competeing that are IMPOSSIBLE for non trained people to reach, and do it for extended peroids of time. More bmp = more calories burned. http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/staging-your-personal-tour-de-france

"The typical Tour de France contestant reaches a maximum heart rate of above 200 beats per minute on a regular basis, compared to almost never for any other segment of the population, says Roll."

I found this calculator: http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx which calculates calories burned based weight, age, sex and heart rate. I put in F, 35, 175 lbs once with heart rate of 160 and once with average rate of 190. The person with the average heart rate of 190 would theoretically burn 200 calories more in an hour than the other.

Yes, I know that higher heartrate means the body has a higher oxygen demand to meet it's cardio energy system needs, thus more calories burned. But the counterpoint is this, good luck any female being able to go for any length of time at 190bpm. Unless they ARE TRAINED. Thats why the better trained you are, the better calorie burns you have,.

As for the 16 cal/minute being the maximum calories a person can give sustained, then why is it unreasonable to see someone burn 1000 calories in an hour? If a person can sustain this effort as you say, then they should be able to achieve that type of burn over the course of an hour as 16*60 =960 calories per hour.

Because thats the tops out level. As in you need to train for it. For untrained, you're unable to exert yourself hard enough to reach that sort of level. Without question the VAST MAJORITY of claims of 1000 calories an hour on this forum are straight up false. (not all, just most)

edit: As an aside, it's interesting that the utter levels of denial people have in order to get overweight are the same demons they seem to have to fight in order to fix their weight. There is prob a good psychological study in there somewhere.

I don't think that to say that people are in denial and that the VAST MAJORITY of 1000 calories an hour entries are wrong is accurate. I did not have to live in denial to get as overweight as I did. I knew exactly what I was doing, I just had no motivation to change it at the time. Many other people are the same. You don't have to be in denial to be apathetic to your situation.

As for the VAST MAJORITY being wrong, you really have no way to know. There were many, many days over the summer where I logged 1000 calories for 1 hour of exercise and maybe my status said I burned this doing exercise including "walking 4 mph". What it doesn't show is that I spent 3 hours in the pool and spent the whole time treading water and also did some intervals of "swimming, vigorously", so I logged that as 30 minutes of vigorous swimming , and that I also walked 1 mile at 4 mph and then jogged for 15 minutes on the treadmill at an average incline of 5%. No, I didn't log or believe that I burned 1000 calories by taking a brisk walk for an hour, and no I didn't do 1 hour of continuous exercise at a high intensity level, but I did several intervals of exercise that got me there and those intervals added up, as did the little movements that burned an extra hundred or two hundred calories an hour to get my total calorie burn up for the day. This wasn't me being in denial; this was me logging my exercise conservatively and it worked for me. This in fact worked very well and my average calories in vs. my average calories out using the activities I logged went right in line with the amount of weight I lost.

Yes, some people may just be in denial, and some people may just be unaware of what's truly accurate for them, but many other people are aware and know what they are doing. We are not dumb, in denial, or unaware just because we logged that we burned 1000 calories in an hour. Maybe they jogged for 15 minutes at 4 different times throughout the day and simply logged it and trusted MFP. Maybe they did 6 highly intense 10 minute workouts throughout the day and really burned 1000 calories and logged that. Maybe they did 3 hours of moderate intensity exercise but logged it as 1 for personal reasons. Maybe they worked out with a HRM and used it's calculations. Just because you don't agree with or believe a person's inputs into a personal diary does not mean that they are dumb or lying to themselves.

tappae

I can burn 1,000 in an hour and I usually do it once a week as a tempo/steady state run by running 8 miles @ ~ 7:30 pace. That is pretty much my half marathon pace. It is a tough workout for sure.

Here is the trick, you have to be pretty heavy and pretty fast. I'm probably ~ 175 lbs (or so) right now, I think a burn of 125 per mile is reasonable for somebody my size - HRM & MFP agree.

You can call BS if you want, but the race results don't lie. http://athlinks.com/racer/results/35543525

you're prob forgetting to subtract your BMR. your actual number would be closer to 800.

I'm not a science guy, but I assume MFP is already considering that. In the context of this site, I do not believe people need to adjust burns for BMR.

Also, his BMR probably isn't 4800 calories. Maybe you meant he should subtract 75 or so?