How are people burning such high calories

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Replies

  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    There are a lot of variable that go into calorie burn...you can't simply compare yours to someone else's. Yes, they could be inflated estimates, but they could also be perfectly legit. Your overall size is going to be a huge factor...both weight and height. Also, your overall fitness level is going to play a pretty big role.

    Someone who is 5'10" but grossly overweight and out of shape is going to burn far more calories doing far less than someone who is 5'10" with 15% BF and very fit. When I first started working back my fitness, all I could really do was walk...just walking my HR would get up to 135 - 140 because I was so out of shape. I don't remember my burn, but now my 3x weekly walks for 30 minutes only give me about 150 calories and my HR doesn't get above 110 because I've upped my fitness and lost 25 Lbs.
  • bostonwolf
    bostonwolf Posts: 3,038 Member
    I just got a heart rate monitor a couple of weeks ago.

    the charts say my 80% should be 140, and my target range 140-156, max (100%) 175.

    when I run I have been having to do intervals to keep it below 165, and still in 35 min I only burn 350 calories. swimming is much the same.

    So my question is how are people burning 1,000 calories in an hour, without going over heart rate recommendations, an I missing something?

    Simple answer for me is that I'm 6'3 and weight 295. When you are that big you burn a lot more calories than someone smaller.

    Also, despite my size I'm in pretty decent cardiovascular shape. So for instance when I do an hour of elliptical, I'm on resistance level 10 or 11 the entire time. As I lose weight I will keep pushing up the speed and resistance which should keep the calorie burn high (thought not as high as before the weight came off.)
  • palmerar
    palmerar Posts: 489 Member
    1 mile = approx 100 calories regardless if you walk or run. Of course if you have more muscles you will burn more and supposedly if you weigh more you will burn more but not really much more to make a difference.

    i do think many people overestimate how many calories they are burning and underestimate how many calories they are consuming.

    I strongly believe if you run 1 mile in under 6 minutes you will be burning more calories than if you walked that mile in 20 min.

    You are correct, and so is the post you quoted. Someone running a 6 min mile would burn (according to that theory) about 333 cals in 20 mins while the person walking would burn 100, that is more!
  • leigh0416
    leigh0416 Posts: 29
    Trust me they are not. Use your HRM or body media device and adjust your calls according to that. That is a flaw with the MFP app. If they were truly burning that much on a daily basis they would be very thin which in most cases is not the case.

    I have learned from experience on this. I bought a Timex HRM with chest strap and was thrilled when it read over 1,000 calories for 60 minutes of TurboFire. Boy was I shocked when I got my BodyMedia armband, that I was actually burning around 500 per hour. Still a good burn, but I like knowing for sure. :smile:
  • leigh0416
    leigh0416 Posts: 29
    Trust me they are not. Use your HRM or body media device and adjust your calls according to that. That is a flaw with the MFP app. If they were truly burning that much on a daily basis they would be very thin which in most cases is not the case.

    I have learned from experience on this. I bought a Timex HRM with chest strap and was thrilled when it read over 1,000 calories for 60 minuteo

    I just started using a Bodybugg too. My TurboFire 60 burn has been between 550-600. My Les Mills Combat is generally between 450-550, but that is only for the 60 minute DVDs. I love my Bodybugg!!!
  • dewsmom78
    dewsmom78 Posts: 498 Member
    I have a Polar watch and it tells me I burn about 230 calories in 30 minutes on the elliptical. And that is staying in my target heart rate zone. I'd have to work out for 2 hours straight to burn 1000 calories.
  • WDEvy
    WDEvy Posts: 814 Member
    I burn +/- 700 cals per hour when I do high intensity workouts like Zumba. I don't stay within the "fat burning" zone. I normally average 168 and can go as high as 185ish. Obviously I expect this number to go down as I lose more weight...
  • PoshDinosaur
    PoshDinosaur Posts: 49 Member
    Very tall, reasonably heavy guy here - 6'9", 250lbs.

    My heart rate strap regularly says 1000+ kcal per hour - I only use it for cardio, rather than strength training. So 20 minutes gets me easily 400, sometimes more. Which conflicts with what the app suggests.

    I don't know the formulae used, so not sure which to follow. I often think heavier weights confuse things a little. I'm tempted to follow the strap rather than the app, as it seems to use my resting heart rate too.
  • now_or_never13
    now_or_never13 Posts: 1,575 Member
    If could be that they are going off what MFP says or they weight more.

    If I do intervals on either my treadmill or elliptical I can burn maybe 600 cals in an hour.
  • MinisterMichelleg
    MinisterMichelleg Posts: 3
    Have a wonderful day!
  • 7631282
    7631282 Posts: 29 Member
    I often wondered the same thing, and realized that once you exercise and enter your exercise, that if you go back and exercise again, that it will just continue to add it on throughout the day. Some people are exercising two/three times a day.
  • bsix3
    bsix3 Posts: 291
    irrelevant. who cares?

    questions you should be asking yourself are things like "what sort of exercise regimen can I commit to doing regularly?", "how should i structure my diet in a way that will keep me satiated?", "what are my fitness goals?"

    ^^^^^^^^ This!! We need to stop looking for reasons to bring down our efforts by finding faults with every body elses.
  • BoomstickChick
    BoomstickChick Posts: 428 Member
    Maybe we're just VERY overweight and our heart works harder? I burn quite a bit.
  • Redbirdz83
    Redbirdz83 Posts: 153 Member
    I often wonder the same thing...I know weight and intensity have to do with calories burned...I log in a high calorie burn but mine is from 2 hours + at the gym (1000-1400) about 5 days a week. Keep doing what your doing...every once and a while really push yourself if you can...good luck!
  • kennie2
    kennie2 Posts: 1,170 Member
    I asked this exact question yesterday pretty much haha.
  • sisierra
    sisierra Posts: 659 Member
    They're not staying within heart rate recommendations if they are actually burning that. Hell, my heart rate generally sits around 190+ when I am going hard.

    This ^^^
  • tracymat
    tracymat Posts: 296 Member
    Probably over estimating. I burn about 300 calories in 35 minutes on the elipitical and I'm drenched in sweat when I'm done.
  • obeseto13point1
    obeseto13point1 Posts: 144 Member
    I use an HRM and I never would burn 1,000 calories in an hour! I think I burned like 1500 doing my half marathon last year, but that was in two hours and forty some minutes! :)
  • sisierra
    sisierra Posts: 659 Member
    irrelevant. who cares?

    questions you should be asking yourself are things like "what sort of exercise regimen can I commit to doing regularly?", "how should i structure my diet in a way that will keep me satiated?", "what are my fitness goals?"

    ^^^^^^^^ This!! We need to stop looking for reasons to bring down our efforts by finding faults with every body elses.

    How is it irrelevant, and the OP obviously cares. Maybe she wants to know how she can burn 1000+ calories too
  • michwinger
    michwinger Posts: 37 Member
    It has a lot to do with weight. I weigh quite a bit more than my sister and when her and I workout together I burn sometimes twice as much as she does.
  • fancydad
    fancydad Posts: 3 Member
    I use an Octane elliptical trainer and work out at lvl 20 resistance, and that gives me about 900 cals an hour. It doesn't matter to me how much it actually is because i never count my workout cals. I just use my daily allotment.
  • Muddy_Yogi
    Muddy_Yogi Posts: 1,459 Member
    They're not staying within heart rate recommendations if they are actually burning that. Hell, my heart rate generally sits around 190+ when I am going hard.

    ^^^This...

    They can recommend away, if I still feel I can go and go hard I am going to!
  • obeseto13point1
    obeseto13point1 Posts: 144 Member
    I do regularly burn over 1,000 in a day, but that is usually running 5 miles plus an hour long weight lifting class.
  • jess50906
    jess50906 Posts: 5
    Try using the elliptical or stair stepper if your able to. On average, according to the machine, you can usually burn about 10 calories per minute.
  • Muddy_Yogi
    Muddy_Yogi Posts: 1,459 Member
    They likely either weigh more or are overestimating. Even while running the best I can do is about 450-475 calories per hour, according to my heart rate monitor.

    According to my HRM I have been able to hit 650 on a really good run within an hour.
  • mum212
    mum212 Posts: 173 Member
    take just dance as an example you get the just sweat version on 2, 3 and 4.
    jd4 is different and cheats you out of calories as the counter stops when the dancer on screen stops dancing.
    just dance 3 just sweat well i can get up to 4500 in sweat points in about 70mins non stop shuffle, which is then devided by 4.2 as it says on the internet and that is about 1071 calories burned in 1hr 10mins, zumba i did today and did 45 mins which burned 410 calories also i weigh 150lbs.
    i do go all out with effort tho its not slow and hardly moving..... i move and i give it my all, i even work my abs and wear 1lb weights on my ankles and arms to help tone
  • Confuzzled4ever
    Confuzzled4ever Posts: 2,860 Member
    I've heard a general rule of thumb is 100 calories for 10 minutes of moderate exercise. Seems to fit your burn there OP.

    I do an hour of kickboxing.. and high energy, high intensity.. i know it burns more. I also do Zumba.. the intensity depends on the teacher.. but I'd wager at least 600 in any class and I usually make it more intense. My step step would be higher then Zumba.. probably up there with kickboxing.. I sweat my butt off in all of them. I have no idea how many calories weight lifting burns and am guilty of just using MFP's numbers on that one. when I do the treadmill it seems to average out to about that 100 calories for 10 minutes, no matter which machine I am one..give or take a few. I know my classes get my heart rate up over reccommended.. but since I have a slow heart rate, it's super easy to go over.. to be in my range is quite diffiuclt. to maintain and as soon as I stop it drops.. Anyway.. I'm looking for cardiovascular workouts usually so I'm happy with the higher rate.

    I did look up the average calories for my classes using google, and adjusted them on here. I don't wanna spend the 100 bucks on the HRM.

    Also heavier people will burn more calories then thinner ones. Unfair if you ask me! but good for them! LOL
  • raisingemilyjune
    raisingemilyjune Posts: 181
    I can burn around 800-1000 in about an hour and a half to two hours, usually closer to the 800 though on the odd occasion where I am running intervals + elliptical + 60 minutes of hard biking + a 2000M row I can get it up to about 1000 burned.

    However, I am also 6'0" and 215lbs, I update the weight in my HRM every 5lbs to make sure it's as accurate as possible as well.
  • Christizzzle
    Christizzzle Posts: 454 Member
    I suspect they are using the inflated numbers given by MFP.

    ^^^ this!!
  • PurpleLadyZ
    PurpleLadyZ Posts: 5 Member
    a HRM is just a tool. the only true way to measure your max is for you to go out and run 400 meters as hard as you can. take your hr, then run it again. if your heart rate goes up the 2nd lap, guess what? you haven't hit your max. run the 400 meters again, take your hr again - when the measurements are consistent, that will be your max - only then can you calculate the upper and lower ranges for fat burning. and your max hr will be different for each cardio exercise you do - you could have a lower max for swimming and biking but a higher max when running. regarding high caloric burns - could be based on a number of factors - the type of workout, how much a person weighs, etc. as an example - I weigh 123 and 90 min of hot yoga...according to my hrm...has a caloric burn of 800+. hope this helps.

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