Login fitness and cal burn?

lazydaydays

Hi I'm in my first month with using MFP and have a question regarding logging in my exercise.

Firstly- why isn't there a treadmill workout to count call burned

Ok here is my main question
I have just returned form the gym and have recorded the information of my workout today by copping the results from the digital displays from the equipment i used in today workout.

which was:
1) Treadmill - walking and jogging intermittently for 42.04 min And burned 216 cal's
2) Elliptical trainer - 16:09 mins ( feet were hurting so couldn't do any more on this) but burned 100 cal's
3) Bike - 16:19 mins burned 101 cal's
4) Swimming - 30mins swimming lengths mainly front crawl. MFP says I burned 294 cal's
Total burn 711 cal's

But when I went to log these on my diary using the MFP 'add exercise' button, the results are very different for my the amounts of 'calories' burned from what the gyms equipments have said.

MFP says :
1) No treadmill so used walking, at 5.0 mph ( but I was actually doing 5.5 mph when walking and 6.5 mph when jogging) anyway log say 471 cal's burned
2) elliptical trainer says -203 cal's burned
3) choosing stationary bike, general and this says 159 cal's burned.
4) swimming was same as I used MFP to log this so 294cls burned

Total burn 1127 cal's

So the difference is 416 cal's which is loads, so which is right I'm so confused

Help

Ps hope u understand all that writing is not one of my strong point lol

lazydaydays

bump

jabrock9

It depends a lot of your weight, gender, amount of effort, etc... but I know for me, walking for that long on a treadmill for instance, I burn way more than that. I have a hrm that I use. I'm female, 150 lbs and 35 yo. Hopefully this helps a bit.

jabrock9

As in more than the 216 calories. Sorry, I forgot to specify.

Mathguy1

When I use the treadmill, I list it under cardiovascular activity. Search for "Stair-treadmill ergometer, general". When I log it into MFP, I select the number of minutes that cause the caloric burn to most closely match what the treadmill stated I burned.

I am on the treadmill for roughly 32-34 minutes. The number in MFP whose resulting caloric burn most closely matches what the treadmill stated is 35-36 minutes. Therefore in MFP, I select 35 minutes.

lazydaydays

thanks - im 37(38 soon) and currently weigh 185.4lb, but i did log my weight on the treadmill at 185lb)

PaytraB

I change what MFP says to the calories burned that the treadmill says I burned. I think it's closer than MFP only because I do some walking & some jogging so my walking pace isn't steady. MFP assumes a steady gait.

lazydaydays

im still confused to why the big difference in burned cal's

but I'm easily confused lol

lazydaydays

I change what MFP says to the calories burned that the treadmill says I burned. I think it's closer than MFP only because I do some walking & some jogging so my walking pace isn't steady. MFP assumes a steady gait.

thanks thats what i have done today, but the difference is so big and I'm actually puzzled by it all, i try and eat back some of the calories on workout days so don't want to over estimate the workout

MinnieInMaine

I think MFP doesn't have a treadmill listing because there are several things you could be doing on the treadmill. One person might be walking slow at 2.5mph and another person might be running 8mph. It's the same reason they don't do calorie counts for the strength training - it's way too vague of a description.

Now for your calorie counts. These answers are based on my experience with what I get for burns on my Polar FT4 heart rate monitor (HRM):

Walking/running - generally you'll burn about 100 calories per mile. Not sure how many miles you covered in that 42 minutes but as fast as you were going, let's assume at least 4 so you probably burned closer to MFP's number

Elliptical - I find the same rule applies, if your machine shows distance it usually comes out to about 100 calories per mile.

Bike - depends on how hard you're working but I think the bike's calorie count is fairly accurate.

Swimming - again, depends on what you were doing, how hard you were swimming. I've never used my HRM while swimming but will say that MFP usually overestimates so I'd go with 200 calories to be safe.

lazydaydays

I think MFP doesn't have a treadmill listing because there are several things you could be doing on the treadmill. One person might be walking slow at 2.5mph and another person might be running 8mph. It's the same reason they don't do calorie counts for the strength training - it's way too vague of a description.

Now for your calorie counts. These answers are based on my experience with what I get for burns on my Polar FT4 heart rate monitor (HRM):

Walking/running - generally you'll burn about 100 calories per mile. Not sure how many miles you covered in that 42 minutes but as fast as you were going, let's assume at least 4 so you probably burned closer to MFP's number

Elliptical - I find the same rule applies, if your machine shows distance it usually comes out to about 100 calories per mile.

Bike - depends on how hard you're working but I think the bike's calorie count is fairly accurate.

Swimming - again, depends on what you were doing, how hard you were swimming. I've never used my HRM while swimming but will say that MFP usually overestimates so I'd go with 200 calories to be safe.

ok that sounds reassuring.

i have my distances:
treadmill - 2.39 miles
elliptical - 1.02 miles
bike - 2.73 miles

my treadmill workout was my most hardest in effort (find jogging take my heart rate to 150/160 while doing it.
and im an ex club swimmer so swimming come fairly easy for me.

thanks everyone for your thoughts on this.

lazydaydays

Anyone else have and thoughts on this?

lazydaydays

Bump