elliptical machine says i burned 90 calores in 30 mins

Sounds too little, it tells me 180 for 20 minutes...and I weigh 120

Sounds way to little to me... I weigh 120lb and lightly use the elliptical and for 10 minutes its between 65-90 cals depending on what level I set it to!

I get pretty low burns on the elliptical. I'm 120 and will burn 150-170 in 30min (per the elliptical machine). On my HRM, I get slightly more, but not that much more, so it's pretty good measure.

Unless you were going VERRRRRRRY slow; definitely inaccurate!

Sounds very low. 10 cals/minute would be a fairly light effort workout at your weight. 20 cals/minute would be about a maximum, like a sprint, and you probably wouldn't be able to sustain it for 30 mins. It's safe to say it's somewhere between those two, scaled to your level of effort.

I'll be sooo happy when I can do the eliptical for even 20 min....I just started out at the gym and am going very slow but I am only up to 1 min and 15 sec on that one machine...ugh that's just embarrassing!!!! But I keep at it everyday....started out at 30 sec...I can't imagine 30 or 40 min!!!! Your calories burned HAVE to be more that what it says! Good luck and keep on!!!

Honestly that was me at the beginning, within 2 weeks I was up to 20 minutes:) Stick with it:)

I don't believe any calorie count from any exercise equipment other than a heart rate monitor. By monitoring the heart's workload during exercise is the best way to figure out how hard you are working and the calories burned.

How do u know how many calories u burn by using a heart rate monitor? I've been using my stair stepper & it totals my calories by how fast I go & how many steps I take in the amount of time so it varies like it should but even tho I go hard on it, I think it's giving me way too many calories burned but Idk? I did 30 mins with 2914 steps & it said I burned 407 calories & the same day I did 30 mins & 3701 steps & it says I burned 518 caloried but I think that's too high... I would luv 2 know how many calories I'm actually burning...

and I weight 240 pounds.


Is this possible? has to be wrong

The machines in my gym are calibrated for an "average" person... I managed to find what these stats were once and it turns out it's for a male, 6'1", 185lbs.

It was no surprise then at a short, fat female... the numbers were all wrong. It also stuffs with the calories burned count if you take either of your hands off the HRM plates *at all*.

If you're in it for the long haul and you want accurate calorie-burned figures... I'd recommend you invest in your own HRM. I love my Polar FT7 (especially as I can swim with it) and as soon as I started using it I began losing much more consistently (which makes me think the numbers were far more accurate).
Hope this helps

and I weight 240 pounds.


Is this possible? has to be wrong

The machines in my gym are calibrated for an "average" person... I managed to find what these stats were once and it turns out it's for a male, 6'1", 185lbs.

It was no surprise then at a short, fat female... the numbers were all wrong. It also stuffs with the calories burned count if you take either of your hands off the HRM plates *at all*.

If you're in it for the long haul and you want accurate calorie-burned figures... I'd recommend you invest in your own HRM. I love my Polar FT7 (especially as I can swim with it) and as soon as I started using it I began losing much more consistently (which makes me think the numbers were far more accurate).
Hope this helps

Maybe your gym has some special equipment, but most machines don't use the HRM plates at all for calories, the calories burned are an algorithim based on the METS (how hard the machine is working). For example, if I'm running at 13 METS, the calorie count is 13x your resting calorie burn, which is determined by the inputs you give the machine- weight, and gender primarily. If they used the HRM plates, you would never be able to get numbers for, say, running since you can't (shouldn't) hold the handles and run.

That sounds low, but it's difficult to say since we don't truly know the resistance you used or the effort you put in. Effort is hard to judge based on what someone tells you. My friend's intense effort is my moderate effort and my moderate effort is my sister's light effort. Like everyone else suggested, I would get a heart rate monitor. However, they too are not entirely accurate. If you are really out of shape, your heart rate monitor may overestimate your calories burned. If you are really in shape it may underestimate them. In addition, anything that elevates your heart rate but doesn't involve any extra work will make your heart rate monitor overestimate calories.
I take most "calories burned" counts with a grain of salt.