Overestimating calories burned and weight loss

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  • downwardtrenz
    downwardtrenz Posts: 14 Member
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    I mainly use a Fitbit, but I treat the stated burn as 'for interest only; and never take any of it into account when calculating my food intake for the day. I work to 1800 cals a day irrespective of any exercise..in that way, any exercise cals are simply a bonus which I ignore for the purposes of calculation.

    This is what I do too. I use the FitBit to increase my activity and make sure I hit at least 10,000 steps a day. Depending on if those steps are continuous or spread out over the day it shows an increase in calories of 300-600 on any given day. I don't "eat" them. Walking isn't strenuous enough exercise for me to be considered a "workout". I stick to my goal of 1400 calories/day averaged over 7 days.
  • rutheglen
    rutheglen Posts: 24 Member
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    I often do a two hour walk, over the mountains where I live. I log it as hiking on MapMyWalk, and usually move at around 5km per hour (sometimes a bit faster). I usually do around 2 hours, and it logs at around 1000 to 1300 burned. A good half of it is uphill, steep gradients, and I don't slow down much for that. I rarely eat all the calories back, because I don't feel hungry - if I am hungry, I WILL eat!! ;) Anyway, it works for me - I am losing at a slow and steady rate, and, after 19 months, I am almost at my goal. I think listening to your body, is the best way, but, like everybody on here, I am just stating my opinion, and what works for me, could well be a disaster for anybody else :)
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,053 Member
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    I don't think it's fair to condemn everyone without knowing their situation. Different bodies burn things differently and different classes/programs/routines can be more or less intensive than the label reveals, imho.

    OP wasn't condemning, IMHO. She stated her intention to start a discussion about inaccurate estimate potential. I think it is a valid conversation to have. I'm learning something!
  • SKME2013
    SKME2013 Posts: 704 Member
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    I think it all boils down to trial and error. I use a Polar RCX5 sports watch with heart rate monitor, that is capable of calculating my resting heart rate, VO2 Max and Max heart rate. I use it for all of my sports and I log my burned calories on my fitbit app that syncs with myfitnesspal. Over time you learn how many of your burned calories you can eat back without gaining weight. I sometimes eat them all back and the next day I might eat none back. Fitbit gives me the average daily burned calories over all the months that I have used it and if I take that number minus roughly 20% I get a much better idea of my true TDEE.
    Works for me and I am very close to my target weight (under 1kg to go)
    Stef.
  • segovm
    segovm Posts: 512 Member
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    I absolutely don't worry about it in the slightest. The calorie estimates are way off for most everything, the exercise we do as well as the food we eat.

    I do know that healthy people eat good food in moderation and get up and move more often than unhealthy people so I mostly aim to do that. I keep track of the stuff I eat and the exercise I do mostly so I can see what works best for me in the long term.

    When I go for a three hour bike ride it tells me that I've burned over 2000 calories but I still just eat good foods that fill me up, normally putting me at an estimated 1700-2000 calories a day total. It would be rather insane to imagine that I am operating at a 2500 calorie a day deficit so I just try and give my body the fuel it needs to make it through the day and feel good.
  • PrincessTinyheart
    PrincessTinyheart Posts: 679 Member
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    Last night I ice skated at a moderate pace for 100 minutes (I know it was 100 because the ice rink has a huge digital clock on the wall - you see it every time you go around) and MFP says I burned nearly 1200 calories. But I weigh 220 so this would be different if I weighed less.

    I checked three other sites that calculate calories burned and they all gave basically the same answer.
  • raindawg
    raindawg Posts: 348 Member
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    The MFP numbers are all over the place. For me I found after getting a HRM that MFP was underestimating my calorie burn. I have a hard time believing 1,000 calorie burns other than the poster who biked for 3 1/2 hours.

    I say put in what you want, if you are hitting your weight goals then good. If your are not then that's your sign that something isn't correct in your tracking and needs to adjust.
  • scrapjen
    scrapjen Posts: 387 Member
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    I am a numbers freak ... I really WISH we could get an accurate accounting of burn (and calorie intake, even with weighing and measuring, which I am admittedly not good at) it all estimates.

    I'll write down the numbers from my HRM, my Fitbit and the machine readout. Sometimes I'll check in with an online calculator. At times they are somewhat close, most times they are quite different. I do always try to err on the side of caution and under-estimate my exercise, and try not to eat back all my exercise calories (although sometimes it's hard when I "see" them there, available). I crunch my numbers at the end of the week ... sometimes a 3500 deficit equals a pound of loss, but not always. Sometimes (rarely) there is an unearned loss or gain, but I know that my numbers are just estimates so I just use them for a general idea and go from there.
  • zoeysasha37
    zoeysasha37 Posts: 7,088 Member
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    I see that a lot on here as well. I don't mention it, as it's their own business. But yes, I think to myself"how the heck do they think this is correct???" LOL!!!
  • Nightcometh
    Nightcometh Posts: 67 Member
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    This is another reason I keep my calories to under 1,000 a day. I don't eat back anything, because I want as big a deficit as possible.
  • PrincessTinyheart
    PrincessTinyheart Posts: 679 Member
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    I totally agree even for my own numbers... But I don't know how to adjust accurately. I think I might start keeping my calorie deficit from exercise for a couple of weeks to see if that helps spur weight loss.
  • PinkyFett
    PinkyFett Posts: 842 Member
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    People that have more weight burn more calories I've noticed. I weogh over 200 lb and burn about 300 per 20 minutes on my treadmill. May seem like a lot, but it's what my hrm says. Usually varies a few valories in one direction or another, but it's my average. I could easily reach 1000 calories wokring out for an hour/ hour and a half a day.

    Also adding that I typically eat half of my calories burned back, sometimes more if I'm hungry. Sometimes none if I'm not hungry. My diary has me at 1400 so as long as I hit that, I don't stress about eating back exercise calories.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    There are a few cases where this simply may be true like in my case. You are forgetting that there are people of different sizes here. For someone just shy of 250 pounds it's not hard to burn close to 1000 calories in 90 minutes of just walking (through MFP does not agree with my HRM and says I burn 800, which is the number I use). Imagine a very brisk walk, while carrying at least a 100 pounds and I guarantee you will have that kind of burn.

    Forgive me, but that ain't necessarily so. I weigh 245 pounds and I walk a lot, tracking with the distance/time with Endomondo and calories with an HRM. I burn around 200 calories an hour walking over uneven 'field' terrain. Even on a cross-country setting on an elliptical my HRM is only reporting a 400 calorie burn over an hour. However if I do something I'm not conditioned to doing - heavy circuits or something - then the calorie burn shoots up because my heart-rate's right up and I'm sweating like a P.I.G.

    I did a bootcamp just over a week ago and they were reckoning that, *on average*, we'd be burning 2,000 calories through exercise a day. That was 7-8 HOURS of exercise - some high intensity (kick boxing, circuits, running) and some lower (kettles, Yoga, aqua aerobics.)

    Sadly your estimate of energy spent is vastly off.

    The fact you walk a lot doesn't mean you burn less doing it, it means you burn more fat doing it and the HR doesn't have to go up as high.
    Most people don't have to walk a lot daily to have reached maximum efficiency doing it, when they were a kid.

    For example given, 250 lbs @ 90 min at 4 mph 2% grade (easily hit outdoors for "level" walking) - 1000 calories.
    http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

    And in studies that's within 4% of lab measured, whereas your HRM with device measured stats could be upwards of 35% off.

    And your heavy circuits would really be inflated, because increased HR then doesn't have to do with aerobic nature of cardio, but anaerobic nature of strength training.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/459580-polar-hrm-calorie-burn-estimate-accuracy-study
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    This is another reason I keep my calories to under 1,000 a day. I don't eat back anything, because I want as big a deficit as possible.

    Other extreme isn't useful either. Well, unless you want to start a lifetime of yo-yo dieting with it being harder each time, then that's the way to go.

    If bigger is better - why don't you just stop eating and lose the weight fast, whatever it may be?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i_cmltmQ6A
  • wonderwoman234
    wonderwoman234 Posts: 551 Member
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    The purpose of these boards is to give and get advice. The OP is doing just that, so I don't understand some of the responses telling her to mind her business. It's a discussion board!

    I do agree that many folks are overstating their calorie burn. There was a woman who posted a few days ago who said that doing 45 minutes of walking at lunch and running/walking 3 miles in an hour burned 1200 calories and she felt she couldn't eat them all back because she wasn't hungry. Well, she wasn't hungry for them because she didn't burn 1200 calories doing those things!

    There is a law of diminishing returns to factor in as well. Maybe the FIRST time you do a new exercise, you will burn what the machine says. But each time you will burn less and less as your body learns to become more efficient at doing it. So that 3 mile run will burn less as you get accustomed to it than it does in the beginning.
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    The purpose of these boards is to give and get advice. The OP is doing just that, so I don't understand some of the responses telling her to mind her business. It's a discussion board!

    I do agree that many folks are overstating their calorie burn. There was a woman who posted a few days ago who said that doing 45 minutes of walking at lunch and running/walking 3 miles in an hour burned 1200 calories and she felt she couldn't eat them all back because she wasn't hungry. Well, she wasn't hungry for them because she didn't burn 1200 calories doing those things!

    There is a law of diminishing returns to factor in as well. Maybe the FIRST time you do a new exercise, you will burn what the machine says. But each time you will burn less and less as your body learns to become more efficient at doing it. So that 3 mile run will burn less as you get accustomed to it than it does in the beginning.

    That's not really how it works in a lot of cases, for things like walking and running. Your calorie burn will go down as you weigh less, but doing the same workout at the same weight and same intensity burns the same amount of calories, fit or unfit.
  • TheVirgoddess
    TheVirgoddess Posts: 4,535 Member
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    I've never had an exercise day over 500 calories. Either I'm doing it right, or very, very wrong.
  • LynndaMaree
    LynndaMaree Posts: 88 Member
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    I was using calories burned from MFP and they are very inaccurate. I received my Polar HRM last week and tried it out. When I weighed in yesterday, on Friday I had lost 3.6 pounds. I did a walking exercise and MFP had me burning 450 calories and my HRM said 192. It's probably not 100% accurate either, but I'll go with what it says. That's why I wasn't losing weight like I should have been. And I was eating back some of the calories that I thought I was burning (but wasn't really burning them). I love my HRM.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    The purpose of these boards is to give and get advice. The OP is doing just that, so I don't understand some of the responses telling her to mind her business. It's a discussion board!

    I do agree that many folks are overstating their calorie burn. There was a woman who posted a few days ago who said that doing 45 minutes of walking at lunch and running/walking 3 miles in an hour burned 1200 calories and she felt she couldn't eat them all back because she wasn't hungry. Well, she wasn't hungry for them because she didn't burn 1200 calories doing those things!

    There is a law of diminishing returns to factor in as well. Maybe the FIRST time you do a new exercise, you will burn what the machine says. But each time you will burn less and less as your body learns to become more efficient at doing it. So that 3 mile run will burn less as you get accustomed to it than it does in the beginning.

    That's not really how it works in a lot of cases, for things like walking and running. Your calorie burn will go down as you weigh less, but doing the same workout at the same weight and same intensity burns the same amount of calories, fit or unfit.

    So perceived exertion does not equal superior calorie burn? That's interesting! Do you have any resources? I would enjoy some light reading on the matter, and if this is the case I may even invest in a weighted vest and add back some of the weight I lose as my fitness increases to keep a relatively high burn for a relatively low effort.
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    The purpose of these boards is to give and get advice. The OP is doing just that, so I don't understand some of the responses telling her to mind her business. It's a discussion board!

    I do agree that many folks are overstating their calorie burn. There was a woman who posted a few days ago who said that doing 45 minutes of walking at lunch and running/walking 3 miles in an hour burned 1200 calories and she felt she couldn't eat them all back because she wasn't hungry. Well, she wasn't hungry for them because she didn't burn 1200 calories doing those things!

    There is a law of diminishing returns to factor in as well. Maybe the FIRST time you do a new exercise, you will burn what the machine says. But each time you will burn less and less as your body learns to become more efficient at doing it. So that 3 mile run will burn less as you get accustomed to it than it does in the beginning.

    That's not really how it works in a lot of cases, for things like walking and running. Your calorie burn will go down as you weigh less, but doing the same workout at the same weight and same intensity burns the same amount of calories, fit or unfit.

    So perceived exertion does not equal superior calorie burn? That's interesting! Do you have any resources? I would enjoy some light reading on the matter, and if this is the case I may even invest in a weighted vest and add back some of the weight I lose as my fitness increases to keep a relatively high burn for a relatively low effort.

    Heybales, who is participating in this thread, can probably answer far better than I. But here is a blog by another user that explains it
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/calories-burned-during-exercise-it-s-the-intensity-not-the-heart-rate-that-counts-26524

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