Which is more accurate?

ChunkyMonkeyfromFunkyTown
ChunkyMonkeyfromFunkyTown Posts: 4
edited September 21 in Fitness and Exercise
Hey guys,
I was just wondering which is more accurate. I just did roughly a 40min walk, brisk pace.
My heart rate monitor watch is saying i burned 478Cal.
My pedometer on my ipod is saying 234 Cal.
And MFP is saying I burnt 327Cal.

I wanna go with the heart rate monitor, but at the same time I'd rather underestimate, than overestimate, how much Calories I'm burning, so I'm thinking I should probably go with what MFP says.
Any advice would help, thanks very muchly,
Have a great day,
Lauren.

PS - I'm thinking I should basically ignore what the pedometer tells me, I was just more curious as to how many steps I took, which was about 3800! :D

Replies

  • kspeach
    kspeach Posts: 179 Member
    From everything I've been told, you should go by the HRM. Sometimes MFP and other online calcs are over, under or just right (kinda like Goldilocks!). I think HRM is the most consistent. Does your HRM have a strap or just the watch? I think the ones with the strap are the best...and how are the batteries on it? How old is it?
  • 4lafz
    4lafz Posts: 1,078 Member
    Go with the HRM! Our height, weight and pace have alot to do with it and this is not in MFP - and probably not in your pedometer either. You don't have to eat all your exercise calories! I usually leave some on the table for error rate. Good luck!
  • tmcowan
    tmcowan Posts: 322 Member
    The 478 doesn't sound right, I ran 43 minutes tonight at a about a 10:52 pace and burned 534 calories the MFP is usually very close to what my watch has, so I would go with the MFP total.
  • ChunkyMonkeyfromFunkyTown
    ChunkyMonkeyfromFunkyTown Posts: 4
    From everything I've been told, you should go by the HRM. Sometimes MFP and other online calcs are over, under or just right (kinda like Goldilocks!). I think HRM is the most consistent. Does your HRM have a strap or just the watch? I think the ones with the strap are the best...and how are the batteries on it? How old is it?

    nah, its just the watch, I'm a poor uni student and the watch was a bit pricey even for me, let alone the strap (also there was no straps in stock at the time)
    I only bought it on Saturday so its brand new.
    I was thinking of averaging what MFP and the HRM said and going with that, as I know HRMs are more accurate than MFP (and other website calculators), but this is more because I'd rather underestimate as I said I before.
  • Jamiebee24
    Jamiebee24 Posts: 296 Member
    If its a hrm with a chest strap and your stats are entered correctly, i'd go with with heart rate monitor. i was surprised by how many calories i was actually burning on my walks as well---mfp was under estimating by a TON.


    now i see that it doesn't have a chest strap---what i did before i had a reliable calorie count was to not eat all of my exercise cals, i still don't---but i was much more careful about it before. with all of the uncertainty of mfp counters, better safe than sorry!!
  • ChunkyMonkeyfromFunkyTown
    ChunkyMonkeyfromFunkyTown Posts: 4
    The 478 doesn't sound right, I ran 43 minutes tonight at a about a 10:52 pace and burned 534 calories the MFP is usually very close to what my watch has, so I would go with the MFP total.

    I was walking in mountainous terrain, through a forrest up and down hills, off track, at a brisk pace. So I put in MFP that I was walking at a brisk pace, so this wouldn't have been factored into its calculating.
    Plus according to MFP, the heavier you are, the more Cals you burn doing the same amount of exercise. Is that becuase the heavier you are the harder you have to work? Which is why when you get fitter, to get the same amount of energy expenditure you have to do it longer?
  • kspeach
    kspeach Posts: 179 Member
    The 478 doesn't sound right, I ran 43 minutes tonight at a about a 10:52 pace and burned 534 calories the MFP is usually very close to what my watch has, so I would go with the MFP total.

    I was walking in mountainous terrain, through a forrest up and down hills, off track, at a brisk pace. So I put in MFP that I was walking at a brisk pace, so this wouldn't have been factored into its calculating.
    Plus according to MFP, the heavier you are, the more Cals you burn doing the same amount of exercise. Is that becuase the heavier you are the harder you have to work? Which is why when you get fitter, to get the same amount of energy expenditure you have to do it longer?

    Exactly. What one person burns in an hour versus another one does involve how much you weigh. For your skinny people, grab like 5 bags of 10 pounds of potatoes and see how fast you'd go then. ;) And you'd be burning more cals doing it ;).
  • canstey
    canstey Posts: 118
    The 478 doesn't sound right, I ran 43 minutes tonight at a about a 10:52 pace and burned 534 calories the MFP is usually very close to what my watch has, so I would go with the MFP total.

    I was walking in mountainous terrain, through a forrest up and down hills, off track, at a brisk pace. So I put in MFP that I was walking at a brisk pace, so this wouldn't have been factored into its calculating.
    Plus according to MFP, the heavier you are, the more Cals you burn doing the same amount of exercise. Is that becuase the heavier you are the harder you have to work? Which is why when you get fitter, to get the same amount of energy expenditure you have to do it longer?

    Exactly. What one person burns in an hour versus another one does involve how much you weigh. For your skinny people, grab like 5 bags of 10 pounds of potatoes and see how fast you'd go then. ;) And you'd be burning more cals doing it ;).

    But only because of weight change and not because a person becomes more fit, which only lowers perceive effort and not calories burned. Two people of the same weight doing the same mechanical work, i..e walking the same 3 miles, should burn about the same number of calories even if one is appearing to work much harder than the other. This is where HRMs may have very different calorie burn results if not set properly. The person whose heart rate averages higher may get a significantly higher calorie burn result so one or both may be off.

    As you get fitter, you need to increase the intensity to still average the same heart rate but you will be burning more calories if you weigh the same. Hard to say if you will become fitter faster than the calories lost due to weight loss (assuming exercise moves body weight) so it can become overly complicated if you want the most accurate results. I have a Polar F11 that attempts to estimate VO2Max from resting heart variability. I left the initial low VO2Max it found for 3 months and updated my weight even though I knew I was getting much fitter and it was estimating calories lower and lower week after week for the identical bike rides. I redid the VO2Max estimate and now my HRM estimates calories pretty close to MFP. I should know its accuracy in another few weeks when I compare predicted weight loss from calorie deficit to actual weight lost. The previous 6 weeks it looks like I was underestimating exercise calories by 10% because I lost more weight than predicted but within 10% is an excellent result.
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