Speed Check = 13MPH Average = Moderate?

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DetroitHustlesHarder69
DetroitHustlesHarder69 Posts: 8
in Fitness and Exercise
I'm using an Exerpudic Semi-Recumbent Folding Exercise Bike and averaging approx. 13MPH at the current difficulty setting. When I want to add the time I spent cycling to MyFitnessPal, should be I using the light or moderate difficulty listing under the "Exercise Bike" section (in Cardiovascular Exercise).

I've been using Moderate, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't kidding myself and giving myself more exercise calories than I'm due.

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  • samammay
    samammay Posts: 468
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    I would use Light. Better to underestimate calories burnt than overestimate.
  • michaelp_
    michaelp_ Posts: 9
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    Exercise machines are often not very accurate and vary machine to machine. You are probably going at a moderate pace at 13 mph but the best thing to do is to monitor your heart rate. There are a lot of online tools that will help with this. Monitoring is an accurate way to know how you are doing.

    If heart rate monitoring is not your cup o' tea, you can use the perceived exertion scale (PE). There are various delineation to this but the general idea is how did the workout feel to you, in terms of how hard you worked. It is on a scale of 1-10.
    1 is very light non-exercise activity, like folding the laundry of doing dishes,
    5 is a good solid workout, and
    10 is an all out race to win, collapse at the finish line pace. We don't do 10 very often.
  • DetroitHustlesHarder69
    DetroitHustlesHarder69 Posts: 8
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    Let me be a little more clear:

    In addition to the clarification/input you guys had... I guess what I was wondering is if the exercise bike speed/effort is comparable to the regular bicycle-riding segment in the cardio exercise group... effort-wise. If so, then they should be really comparable. I mean, I guess I could just plug in numbers and see how different the numbers are, but I just didn't know if anyone knew more accurately how those numbers actually fell.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    This is what I would do.

    - Figure out how long I want to ride the bike.
    - Figure out how many miles I can run in that same period of time
    - Calculate the number of calories running that far would burn (0.63 * bodyweight in pounds * miles)
    - Pick a combination of effort level and time in MFP that equals 80% of that
  • DetroitHustlesHarder69
    DetroitHustlesHarder69 Posts: 8
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    This is what I would do.

    - Figure out how long I want to ride the bike.
    - Figure out how many miles I can run in that same period of time
    - Calculate the number of calories running that far would burn (0.63 * bodyweight in pounds * miles)
    - Pick a combination of effort level and time in MFP that equals 80% of that
    Dang. That's complicated. I'm a simpleton... I guess I'm just looking for an easier way.
  • DetroitHustlesHarder69
    DetroitHustlesHarder69 Posts: 8
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    For now I'm just going to stick with using the light setting. During a 20-30 minute session, it's only in the last 5-10 minutes (respectively) that I start to sweat anyways.

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