Caloric expenditure estimation?

laffek
laffek Posts: 20 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
How does everyone estimate and track calories burned when doing exercise videos, like 30 day shred, P90X, etc? When you walk/run or swim its easy to figure out your mileage and caloric energy expenditure. I like to eat my calories burned, so I want to track them. I just started a Leslie Sansome Walk at Home video and I'm going toward the 30 day shred, too. Any tips much appreciated!

Replies

  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    They are all just estimates of cardio exercise. You can use MFP's suggestions, or base it on your own experience. Some people also use HRMs.

    At the end of the day, you make the estimate, track it, evaluate the results, and go from there. If you estimate a defict but are gaining, chances are your estimates are wrong (eating more than you think and/or burning less than you think). If you estimate a surplus and you are losing, chances are your estimates are wrong (eating less than you think and/or burning more than you think).

    There is a lot of science to all this, but even the science is based on estimates of cals eaten and cals burned, which means that trial and error is a necessary part of the process.
  • tooliebell
    tooliebell Posts: 177 Member
    I bought a heart rate monitor about 3 months into my journey. Before that I was just using what MFP calculated for each activity I was doing. My elliptical has a calories burned measurment, but it is way off my HRM. Last night, the elliptical estimated I burned 50 more calories than my HRM. I have never entered my weight into the elliptical (not sure there a setting for that) so I don't think it is very accurate.

    The HRM was about $70 of an investment but well worth it. And true at the end of the day, it is all just estimates, even the calories you eat are just estimates.

    I do Walk away the pounds video and log it in as walking. Put in the time and then adjust the calories to what my HRM says. I do the 30 day shred as well and log that as circuit training and do the same, log the time, then adjust the calories to what the HRM says.

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