iFit on a treadmill calorie burn so much higher

SyllyThings
SyllyThings Posts: 15 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Anybody else use iFit. We recently bought a treadmill with iFit. I signed up and put in my data and did a workout. The calorie burn said over 450 which is hard to believe. When I manually input into Runkeeper, it said 392 calories and MVP figures 348. Some variance I can take but this is a lot. Which is correct? I figure iFit must be taking into account inclines, and so would Runkeeper because you can Google map the workout. I was always told to not go by what the equipment says for calorie burn because it doesn't know you, but iFit should take that part out, you think? Anybody have thoughts on this?

Replies

  • LvLite
    LvLite Posts: 102 Member
    bump as I would like to know too.
  • cjgsmg
    cjgsmg Posts: 131 Member
    My treadmill also can sink to my heart rate monitor and my heart rate monitor always shows that I burn about 50 calories less than what the workout projects.
  • Jaulen
    Jaulen Posts: 468 Member
    Usually if a piece of equipment doesn't let me enter a weight, I take the calorie burn with a grain of salt and assume it's overestimated.
  • want2lose20now
    want2lose20now Posts: 7 Member
    My HRM (Polar FT7) is about 50 cal. less than my treadmill. I go with my HRM :)
  • joslin2005
    joslin2005 Posts: 138
    I have a Nordictrack that has iFit equipped. I would figure it takes into account the incline ,speed, weight, and age. MFP is just an estimate just like iFit except iFit has more of the info to more accurately calculate the burn. Based off of that logic, I would think iFit would be more accurate than MFP. If your doing alot of intervals or the incline is high, the higher calorie burn is probably right. I personally would go with the iFit. If you think it's too high, then go with the middle number. Underestimating calories can be just as bad as overestimating. See how you feel at the end of the day. If your still hungry, then try using the higher number. If you haven't met your calorie goal and are not hungry, then go with the smaller calorie burn.
  • darbobo
    darbobo Posts: 53
    I recently purchased a Norditrac C2150 with ifit. The built in calorie counter is just plain wrong. I did

    Cape Town South Africa 3 mile run, 49 minutes, 3.9 mph, 400 calories are what the machine said

    I purchased a Polaris HRM with chest strap and it has all my stats and it said 49 minutes 619 calories burned

    The incline on this run is crazy, I was sweating like crazy. So not sure what to believe, I think I trust the HRM more been using it for 2 years
  • MbiggsHFD319
    MbiggsHFD319 Posts: 427 Member
    Unless you can enter gender, age and weight on your treadmill I would go with the HRM. Most treadmills are set to use average calorie burn for a 150 male ( is what I have been told). I usually use to # it gives me to enter into MFP although I realize it is only an estimate. I really do not think the iFit device on my treadmill changes the calorie stats to match my actual weight and age.
  • moclimber10
    moclimber10 Posts: 1
    I just started running again after many years. Bought a ProForm treadmill with iFit. While I agree with everyone else's assessment that the calorie burn numbers, are just a reasonable estimate, I would not want to eliminate the info from my iFit workouts. Even if the number is 10% off, keeping track of the calorie burn from workout to workout still gives me a concrete idea of intensity from one to the next. A good thing to know once you've decided the difference between say an estimated 400 calorie workout and an 800 one. Especially since you can assume that if two workouts have similar time and distance but one has a higher calorie burn, that that one has more difficult incline and speed involved.
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
    Unless you can enter gender, age and weight on your treadmill I would go with the HRM. Most treadmills are set to use average calorie burn for a 150 male ( is what I have been told). I usually use to # it gives me to enter into MFP although I realize it is only an estimate. I really do not think the iFit device on my treadmill changes the calorie stats to match my actual weight and age.

    Weight and intensity are the two things that affect calories burned. Since the treadmill knows intensity, the only other thing it needs is weight. I agree if it doesn't ask for weight than I wouldn't trust it.
    HRMs need the other data points because of the algorithm it uses to estimate calories burned.

    I am not sure if runkeeper actually accounts for hills.

    In the end, there is a 100 calorie difference at most. We are likely off by that or more with food tracking alone. Remember, everything is an estimate, our TDEE, calorie eaten, calories burned, etc.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/exercise-calories-sometimes-the-cardio-machines-are-more-accurate-404739
  • Diamond05
    Diamond05 Posts: 475 Member
    Ifit program takes everything in consideration, Weight, height, gender, bmi, heart rate, speed,incline distance. It works also with a Polar chest starp to monitar your heart rate.

    I have been using Ifit calories burns for the past months. I got a Polar Ft60 this week because I was interrested in knowing how many calories I burn doing other exercise. I went on the treadmill today and used my new strap, the treadmill picked up the heart rate and was showing the same on the watch but I checked the calories burn...another story.... Ifit gave me a burn of 367 calories and the ft60 of 230 calories!!:noway:
    I am very confused about wich one I should take since they both take my stats in consideration????????
  • richard1861
    richard1861 Posts: 1
    IFit records your weight on the website, not the machine. Log into iFit, and click on the "Log" link at top right. Select "weight," and enter your weight.

Categories