Just Dance 4 - What are KCal?

akaMrsmojo
akaMrsmojo Posts: 762 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
So I just got Just Dance 4 and they have an intense workout. I did the 25 minute sweat cheerleader thingy and it stated that I did 74.12 KCal. What the heck is a KCal?

The workout was intense, I do not think it is simply 74(I am hoping at least).

Any one know??

Replies

  • wareagle8706
    wareagle8706 Posts: 1,090 Member
    a KCal is a calorie. Calories are actually given to us in KiloCalories. It's just not typically said that way. It's saying you only burned 74 calories total.
  • waytogoraus
    waytogoraus Posts: 38
    KCals & calories are the same nutritionally speaking. The "kcal" is used mostly in Europe, I think. 74.12 calories = 74.12 kcal.

    The only way to correctly calculate calories burned for dance games/Zumba is to use a heart rate monitor. A HRM will correctly calculate the calories burned according to your heart beat and body stats. There is no real way for the game to accurately tell you how many specific calories your body burned.
  • kyodi
    kyodi Posts: 376 Member
    Unfortunately, yes that is just 74 calories. Society has generalized the Kcal to just calorie. So when a serving of peanuts is 170 calories per 1/4 cup, it's 170 Kcals scientifically speaking.

    I had a similar moment... like "YEAH!!!" :: research :: "crap".

    However, the game is using very generalized information (age/sex/height/weight) to estimate your caloric effort so you may have burned more. Using a heart rate monitor is a better (yet not perfect) measure of calories (Kcals) burned.

    Double silver lining: you had fun AND burned calories. Gotta love that!!

    *Edit: Beat to the punch, but in good company. No replies when I started typing.
  • Cindy311
    Cindy311 Posts: 780 Member
    KCal and Calorie are the same. So if it says you burned 75 KCal then it is 75 calories. Honestly right around 75 calories sounds about right for that kind of activity.
  • akaMrsmojo
    akaMrsmojo Posts: 762 Member
    That is a big ole bummer. The HRM is not in cards right now with my payroll taxes going up. I have done this for three years, 74 seems still a little too much (I was think it would close to 110). I use to calculate it by 6cal a minute dancing. That is when I lost a ton of weight.

    So I might find a mid ground and see how it goes.

    Thanks for the help guys.
  • lamarnnem
    lamarnnem Posts: 189
    i play with my daughters and i just wear my HRM. sorry no real help
  • akaMrsmojo
    akaMrsmojo Posts: 762 Member
    i play with my daughters and i just wear my HRM. sorry no real help


    How much do you usually burn? I know you are a different body type but I am curious.
  • scorpio516
    scorpio516 Posts: 955 Member
    Just an annoying point of clarification:
    A KCal is a Calorie - capitol C. A calorie (small c) it 1/1000 of a KCal and the amount of energy used to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Kelvin or 4.2 Joules.

    A Calorie is also called a nutritional calorie (but still with a capital C)

    It is a confusing unit and not linear either lol. It takes more energy to raise the temperature of 4 Celsius water than it does 20 Celsius water.

    In the EU, they label KCal or KJ (Kilo Joules, if there are 4.2 joules in a calorie, there are 4200 joules, 4.2 KJ, in a Calorie)
  • Melo1966
    Melo1966 Posts: 881 Member
    74 calories sounds about right for someone whom is 20 and 125lbs. If you are older and heavier then your burn is more.
  • akaMrsmojo
    akaMrsmojo Posts: 762 Member
    Well I am definitely not 20 or 125 pounds. Now I am sad. :-(
  • katy_trail
    katy_trail Posts: 1,992 Member
    I think they meant you probably burned more than 74 if you weigh more than a buck 25.
  • ckovalevskiy
    ckovalevskiy Posts: 1
    I just finished one of the workouts myself, and it was just about as intense as a Zumba class. Even though it said I only burned 55 calories...there is no way that is accurate. I just put it at 25 minutes of high intensity dancing, and left it at that.
  • devrinator
    devrinator Posts: 79 Member
    I just came to log my calories for this game. I know that calories we burn is higher if we weigh more. It would be nice to know what Just Dance 4 uses to get the Kcal estimate.
  • devrinator
    devrinator Posts: 79 Member
    I just experimented with other calorie calculators, and some that have "ballroom dancing. slow" seem to have the same numbers for a 130 lb person as Just Dance 4. I chose that one for my weight and it bumped up the caloric expenditure a little bit. I'm going to choose that one for Just Dance 4.
  • akaMrsmojo
    akaMrsmojo Posts: 762 Member
    I do 6 calories a minute. I think is on the low side because it is pretty intense. I wish I had a HRM thingy.
  • PhoenixRising7
    PhoenixRising7 Posts: 194 Member
    I use a HRM when I play Just Dance 4. The other day I burned 483 calories in 51 minutes. It can be a pretty decent workout. I try to push myself pretty hard when I use it as my exercise for the day.
  • lamarnnem
    lamarnnem Posts: 189
    i play with my daughters and i just wear my HRM. sorry no real help


    How much do you usually burn? I know you are a different body type but I am curious.

    In 33 minutes I burned 605 calories. That was song after song after song. My girls laughed at me cuz I was gassed but they kept going.
  • BlasianIvy
    BlasianIvy Posts: 6 Member
    A few pages I've been to that did research on Just Dance 3's Sweat Points determined that if you're overweight and actually do the dances (not just moving one arm or what not), a Sweat Point is about 4.2 kcals. So if you earned 1000 SP, which you could in about 15 minutes, that'd be around 240kcals burned.
    This is one of those pages, btw: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art175545.asp

    That's a pretty big difference from what Just Dance 4 tells you, where they state that their 45min workouts average out to around 200kcal. It would help a lot of if we could plug in our weight and activity level into our profiles - maybe in JD5?
  • akaMrsmojo
    akaMrsmojo Posts: 762 Member
    Great idea with JD5. Let's hope. I did 13 minutes and it told me 27 calories. I call BS on that one. Not when I am moving my butt off.
  • kimgall90
    kimgall90 Posts: 7
    I just finished just sweat on JD4 tonight. I'm new to my fitness pal (on my frost week) and I done the "all around the world" one for 25 min and burned 141.2 KCal

    But it didn't ask my age,height,weight etc

    I am 23 and 202 pounds
  • akaMrsmojo
    akaMrsmojo Posts: 762 Member
    I think it is a severely conservative number. I use 6 calories a minute. That always seems to work for me.
  • xProfLupin
    xProfLupin Posts: 35 Member
    I am playing right now. I've been just doing the Just Dance4 without a HRM for the most part.

    For the Karate one, 25 minutes is about 74 calories.

    For Cheerleader boot-camp one, 25 minutes is about 130 calories.

    Now, I'm doing the Cheerleader Bootcamp and doing the 45 minutes one so I can finish all the levels.. I'm at 25 minutes right now and I'm using a HRM chest strap and it says I've burned 416 calories so far. Of course, this was also with doing 150 squats before starting the game (not sure if I burned anything with the squats, I didn't check).

    My heart rate is racing with the bootcamp. I'm also 5'3" and 245-248 pounds so I'm pretty heavy. I'm even doing the leg work with the dances and if I can't mimic the leg work sometimes, I'll add my own leg moves to make up for it.
  • inspiredjen34
    inspiredjen34 Posts: 63 Member
    I do not see you only burning 74 calories. I had a calorie counter and I wanted to see if the sweat points were off. So I got my total sweat points and divided it by the 4.2 per calorie and it gave me 800 calories burned. So I looked at my calorie counter and it was half that. So something is wrong with the games counting. I would buy a calorie counter or HRM.
  • ShellyShuey
    ShellyShuey Posts: 162
    I give myself 150 calories for every 30 min if I'm giving 100% effort/sweating.

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