Calories from treadmill different from what MFP says..

cathy1678
cathy1678 Posts: 26
in Fitness and Exercise
I do 30-40 min cardio a day and when i add my excercise to MFP the calories i burned on the treadmill or bike at the gym is always ALOT less then what MFP says it is for the amout of tiime i did..why is that,and whats right? HELP:grumble:

Replies

  • Berto0391
    Berto0391 Posts: 273 Member
    You have to options here get a HRM...amazon has them for very cheap or take the lower number.
  • pastryari
    pastryari Posts: 8,646 Member
    MFP overestimates. Your best bet would be to get a HRM. But as the above poster said, you can also just take the lower number to be on the safe side.
  • predent
    predent Posts: 95
    For me, my actual burned amount according to my HRM is somewhere in between MFP and the treadmill. I think the treadmill is lower for me because I only get to put my hands on the sensors when I'm walking, and my heart rate has slowed down a bit by then. MFP is just crazy high though, haha.
  • cathy1678
    cathy1678 Posts: 26
    yea i just put what the treadmill says i burned..like today for 35 min MFP says its 445 cal...but on the treadmill it says i burned 182..thats a big difference..im just gonna go with what it says on the treadmill. :)
  • karenechurch
    karenechurch Posts: 12
    when I workout on my Eliptical I always go by what the calories on it says
  • kikih64
    kikih64 Posts: 349 Member
    I have an HRM and I found that the calories calculated by my treadmill are only slightly off. MFP is too high. On the days I don't put the HRM on, I just use what the treadmill gives me.
  • iuew
    iuew Posts: 624 Member
    same thing with my exercise bike. i put in the calories from the bike, because it knows my weight. i checked walking / hiking with other sources online, and that calorie count is pretty dead on. but the amount of calories MFP gives me for riding the exercise bike is pretty outlandish; it can't be correct.
  • funkyspunky872
    funkyspunky872 Posts: 866 Member
    yea i just put what the treadmill says i burned..like today for 35 min MFP says its 445 cal...but on the treadmill it says i burned 182..thats a big difference..im just gonna go with what it says on the treadmill. :)

    That's too big of a difference. Average them and log 310ish.
  • Jacwhite22
    Jacwhite22 Posts: 7,010 Member
    I agree and disagree with the above....My HRM is lower than both the machine and MFP. 25% lower than machine.....Closer to 40% lower than MFP. Just get the heart rate monitor....It's worth it. Don't go with the lowest of those two because it is likely too high.....Unless you aren't eating back exercise calories then do whatever.
  • dtownfb
    dtownfb Posts: 5 Member
    If you're serious about counting calories, get a heart rate monitor. There's plenty of articles on the internet discussing which is better. My opinion is to go with Timex (good price for the features) and Polar (expensive but people swear by them).

    good luck.
  • sunshinesquared
    sunshinesquared Posts: 2,733 Member
    yea i just put what the treadmill says i burned..like today for 35 min MFP says its 445 cal...but on the treadmill it says i burned 182..thats a big difference..im just gonna go with what it says on the treadmill. :)

    That sounds crazy high! I log mine into MFP and it gives me 221 calories burned for a 30 min uphill walk???? I MUST find my HRM...hid it from my kids and now I cannot for the life of me remember where that secret hiding spot is!! :smile:
  • tvanhooser
    tvanhooser Posts: 326 Member
    Another option I've found helpful is to use the heart rate based calorie calculator at shapesense.com. I took my resting heart rate for a few days and estimated my VO2max as it explains on there so I can use the most accurate version (the second one down the page). So I just take my heart rate as soon as I am done with an exercise routine (or sometimes a few times during if I can) and plug in the numbers and it tells me how many I burned based on MY weight, age, fitness level, etc. and not some generic generalization for the 135 or 150 pound woman that I am not (yet!) of unknown fitness level. So then I plug in how many minutes exercise I did and manually enter the calorie burn from the shapesense calculator onto MFP. It may not be perfect (nothing ever is) but I figure it's got to be closer than a generalization.

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