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

Great job with your post about accurate calorie estimates OP!! I wish you nothing but success in all your fitness and health goals. :flowerforyou:

who ARE you? and what did you do with the other guy?

Working out at the gym is just half of losing weight. The other half is your diet. You can burn lots of calories at the gym but if you eat more than you burned you're not going to lose weight.

HRM do not measure calories burned correctly while doing strength training, or some "cardio". They are for aerobic exercise only. Stuff like HIIT, uphill running or other high intensity cardio could easily become anaerobic and also measure incorrectly.
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Very interesting, makes sense now that you mention it. So how do you workout how many calories you actually burned when you do HITT or weights? I always just go by HRM even when i do HITT and weights.

If your HRM knows your height, weight. Gender then I would trust that over MFP any day. If not, then both are probably just as inaccurate.

Yeah, my HRM knows all that and my estimated max heart rate and fitness level, but it was giving me numbers way above the MFP database, so I don't trust them. I actually use the RunningAHEAD database now and its numbers are very similar to the MFP numbers. It seems pretty accurate to me, since I've been on track with my losing.

I delete those people who log checking the mail, washing the dishes, house cleaning, ironing, playing an instrument, kneading bread....... ok I have to stop

Kneading bread is in the database? I wish I had known that last week. About ten minutes in and my forearms were on fire.

I stopped logging my exercise a long time ago, since I don't eat back exercise calories.

I hope there is someone out there who complains about lazy MFPer's who don't ever exercise.

One of my friends logs over 2000 calorie sometimes, but it's usually after a spin class.

How long is this freaking class?!!!!!!!!
I do 45 minutes and I'm in a pool of sweat to burn around 400 according to the MFP calculator.

I'm asking for a HRM for Christmas so I know what's what.

Me too...I told my family that's what I want for Christmas and now my mother is panicking and thinks something is wrong with my heart...she said "why on EARTH would you need to monitor your heart rate?"
obviously, my mother never exercised a day in her life and she took diet pills when she was pregnant with me...times have changed..

I always use the MFP database calorie burn. Walking at a slow pace (2 mph such as shopping) and hiking cross country give calorie burns that seem unbelievable to me. Shopping definitely will burn more than sitting but I find it hard to believe someone at a healthy weight could burn more than 1000 calories just walking slowly all day. Hiking is great exercise and does burn a lot but it just seems high for cross country. I could be wrong on that one though.

Come hiking w/ me and the hubs and the dog sometime. Don't forget your 25# plus or minus daypack.

:flowerforyou:

But there are options for w/wo backpack. I work near a national forest so sometimes we'll just go for a 1.5 hour hike after work and don't carry anything with us. I put in 90 min cross country hiking and it says I burned something like 800 calories. I wish!!

I'm not sure I'd burn that much cross country even if I was wearing the camera backpack which weighs close to 20 lbs.

Maybe it is just inexperience.

This is my second try on here... I think one needs to try variety of methods to estimate calories. When I first started loading calories, I checked data in several places - the machines at the gym, HRM, also other online activity calculators (not just here on MFP), but only those that asked for age and sex, not just listed activity itself. Also, if walking, I used mapmywalk.com that takes into account trail's elevation, etc...

I think after you do your research and monitor yourself for a while you get a pretty good idea of what you can burn. I always override MFP numbers with what I think I am burning, to my very best knowledge based on my personal research.

In my personal experience, I am still burning very similar number of calories and same number of miles on elliptical, let's say, whether I am up or down 20 pounds. What changes is my heart rate.... Lower when I am at lower weight, higher when I am at higher rate....I hope this is making sense.... I know if I push myself harder, I should be able to increase my heart rate and have more effort go into the exercise. Not sure if anybody else had the same experience. It just becomes easier when you weight less if you keep the same speed while doing the exercise.

I also heard before that one needs to subtract calories you would burn if you were sedentary. So if you exercised for 30 min and machine/HRM says you burnt 300 calories, you need to subtract from that what you would have burnt if you were just resting. The resulting number is the true extra calories you burnt from exercise. Kind of makes sense.

As someone already pointed out, HRM won't measure calories burnt during weight training, and also your body burns more calories after, repairing the torn tissue. How would you ever estimate those calorie burns? I don't know... It says so many calories extra per pound of muscle, but without specific tests, how do you know how many pounds of muscle you have?

I also believe one should not log things like cleaning and walking to mailbox because it is part of your lifestyle. Even shopping at the mall. I cleaned and walked to mailbox and went to the mall "before", so it has always been part of my lifestyle and I gained weight. So now that I am trying to lose weight, I won't log these things because they were part of my lifestyle before.

Same for sex. But then it is whole different beast. I know some people log that. I am not sure. I know everybody is very different and it is such a private matter, etc.... and people say because they now lost weight and their sex life improved, they are burning more calories with this activity. I also know that when they say you can burn so many calories during sex, but it usually says per hour. I think you need to be really active during sex and have elevated heart rate... and I am just not sure that average person would have 1 hr worth of really-really active movement sex to justify logging sex. Again, everybody is different, and maybe mine is just really mellow :):):)

Anyway, just some personal experiences/thoughts to share. I think someone replied and said why care what others do... But I think overall this raised an interesting and much discussed subject of trying to estimate calories burnt and what to log and how. I agree that everybody should do their own research and be honest with themselves.

Also, if you are getting HRM, just read all the instructions very carefully to set it up correctly and also remember to stop it when you are taking a break, etc...

I have seen some funky burns. I normally just go by whatever the MFP database says. What I try to do is not eat back the calories I burned anyways.... that way, even if they are off... I still come out on top!

I delete those people who log checking the mail, washing the dishes, house cleaning, ironing, playing an instrument, kneading bread....... ok I have to stop

Kneading bread is in the database? I wish I had known that last week. About ten minutes in and my forearms were on fire.

That's what I was thinking. I logged my Thanksgiving food prep as cooking. I guess if someone were to delete me for that, then I would be like, "I didn't want you anyway!" or "Take this friendship and shove it!" :laugh:

I just went out for a walk. Brisk 45 minutes and burned 297 calories! My daughter reminds me all the time I lose weight when I take my walks. It even started to rain and I finished!

i'm 6'3" and about 225lbs. if i'm pushing myself for an hour, i can burn a lot. i also had an HRM that greatly over estimated my burns.

Ditto.

I'm 5'10.5 and over 200 lbs. I play Australian Rules Football which is highly aerobic and have logged burns of well over 1000 cals for an 80 minute game, or over 800 cals for a 2 hour training. I've worn my HRM for trainings and games and judged my burns by how hard I thought I was working vs. what the HRM said. In actuality, the calorie burn probably landed somewhere in between the HRM and my estimate.

I also quit "counting" workout calories because I eat at a deficit from my TDEE so I don't eat back exercise calories. It's working great for me.