Overestimating calories burned and weight loss

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.

Finally, someone has managed to say this better than I can explain it. It amuses me that some people really believe that being more fit means less calories burned when the same amount of energy is required.
I am in good cardiovascular shape and I disregard heart rate calorie burns for walking and running and use an online calculator that usually gives me a higher number than mfp. I log my food intake very accurately and even with several supposedly grossly overstated 1000+ calorie burns, my weight loss has actually been faster than the numbers would indicate.

The MFP estimation are indeed high, even for a fattie like me, but I want to track the number of minutes I exercise each day, so I log them all and that's it. I never ate back all my exercise calories, I eat probably 20% of the calories "earned" by exercise.

I would feel really annoyed if someone was judgemental about me and my exercise logging just because MFP is overestimating. To each his own.

I stand corrected. Even though you DO burn fewer calories doing the same exercise at the same weight as you get fitter, it is not as significant as I was led to believe (by a nutritionist and elite athlete trainer!). The article below is good.....and encouraging!


Yes, regular training can decrease your caloric expenditure. Just how many fewer calories you’ll burn when you’re well trained is highly individual, says Bryan Heiderscheit, professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation and director of the runners clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. However, the difference in calorie burn between your well-trained and less-trained self is not enough to warrant a crosstraining obsession.

“For the amount of calories that you might not spend as you become more experienced and refined, it’s not really worth thinking about” crosstraining, Heiderscheit says. Proof: One study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology determined that well-trained runners burn five to seven percent fewer calories than their nonathletic counterparts. A run you did as a newbie athlete that burned 500 calories, for example, might burn 465 to 475 calories when you’re better trained, assuming you’ve stayed the same weight.

That drop in calories spent signifies an increase in economy, the goal of most endurance runners because the miles get easier when the body’s not working as hard to fuel them.

But if your main goal is to burn the most calories possible on each run, up your training speed; several studies have shown that runners are most efficient at frequently used training paces, and that the faster you run, the more calories you’ll burn per mile. So quickening your clip may be the only tweak necessary to maintain the burn. Check out this Runner’s World calculator to see how a change in pace will affect your caloric expenditure. According to the calculator, if a 150-pound runner ran 12-minute pace for an hour, he’d burn 567 calories. Drop that pace to 11-minutes per mile, and he’d burn 618 calories an hour.

THE BOTTOM LINE: It’s likely you’ll burn slightly fewer calories the better trained you are. If you train at a constant pace, increasing it should help your well-trained self maintain the calorie burn of your newbie running days.

Source: http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/bodywork/fitness-coach/Do-seasoned-runners-burn-fewer-calories-than-newbies.html

Very true, and even there that difference is with very long distance runners really making the conscious changes to running style, many times with a coach. Your few times a week for 30-45 min runners aren't going to see those improvements.

Because most people have kinda been walking and running since a little tyke, and are very good at it. Some improvements are to be add for efficiency with going up and down hills, and leg turnover and stride length.
But not much at all unless you just had terrible form prior.

Now, things like Zumba, or P90X, or Insanity, where there are some complex moves almost dance like that require coordination - now those can have a big change in efficiency.

But people rarely do those at the same intensity after getting more efficient, the do more with their more efficient movement - so that is going to suck up that difference in calorie burn from efficiency.

But - those types of workouts also have a point where you can't really get more intense. If you are swinging your arms up and down to a beat by the instructor or side stepping or stepping up to a beat, you are only going to go so fast, the intensity level therefore stops. But likely the efficiency improvements already have too.
So now you just deal with the fact when you lose weight you burn less doing it with no way to try to burn more.

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.

Accuracy of walking / running formulas showing weight is the only thing that matters.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/774337-how-to-test-hrm-for-how-accurate-calorie-burn-is

But you testing it yourself would be best - especially that first thought.

Perceived exertion is about useless for deciding calorie burn.

Get on a treadmill and after warmup go at a speed you can barely maintain for 30 sec.
Remember the speed and recover to a walk for 60 sec.
Repeat that one more time, so 2 total. Remember how hard the intense part felt.
Now another intense 30, same speed.
Recover for 20 sec.
Repeat 2 more times, so 3 total.
Now another intense 30, whatever speed you can that feels the same.
Now another intense 30, whatever speed you can that feels the same.
Another, another.

Did the exertion at that top same speed feel harder during any of those times?

If you picked a correct top speed, you actually won't get enough recovery from 20 sec walking to do it again 2 times.
Hopefully it's obvious the 30 sec with no rest will fail, and while your effort would feel the same, to actually accomplish that you'd have to lower the speed way down.

Just because you ran out of oxygen to burn carbs, and your lactic acid built up and stopped your muscles, does the fact the speed is much lower but your perceived exertion is the same ("as hard as I could"), mean you burned the same calories? No.

It's the same way you can go in to a lifting workout, and if you just ran 10 miles that morning, will you be able to lift as much to failure as on a day you did not run 10 miles? Not a chance. But you can feel like you are giving it the same effort, despite lower weight.

It's also why if you go in to a cardio workout with worn out muscles, you may feel tired but also feel like you are pushing as hard as you can, but the HR and pace give away the fact you aren't going as fast or as hard as normal. Tired muscles can't push a HR as high.

That's why VO2max and HRmax tests are fast ramping, take too long and worn-out muscle just prevents discovering what those maxes really are. You gotta ramp up the speed and incline fast, the goal is under 15, preferably 12 min.

The weighted vest though makes it not a low effort though. But it does mean you can add weight back on, and an evening walk at 4mph burns much more.
Maybe that's what you mean, burn more with the low key workouts as if you weighed more, instead of needing to increase intensity like pace.

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.

Accuracy of walking / running formulas showing weight is the only thing that matters.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/774337-how-to-test-hrm-for-how-accurate-calorie-burn-is

But you testing it yourself would be best - especially that first thought.

Perceived exertion is about useless for deciding calorie burn.

Get on a treadmill and after warmup go at a speed you can barely maintain for 30 sec.
Remember the speed and recover to a walk for 60 sec.
Repeat that one more time, so 2 total. Remember how hard the intense part felt.
Now another intense 30, same speed.
Recover for 20 sec.
Repeat 2 more times, so 3 total.
Now another intense 30, whatever speed you can that feels the same.
Now another intense 30, whatever speed you can that feels the same.
Another, another.

Did the exertion at that top same speed feel harder during any of those times?

If you picked a correct top speed, you actually won't get enough recovery from 20 sec walking to do it again 2 times.
Hopefully it's obvious the 30 sec with no rest will fail, and while your effort would feel the same, to actually accomplish that you'd have to lower the speed way down.

Just because you ran out of oxygen to burn carbs, and your lactic acid built up and stopped your muscles, does the fact the speed is much lower but your perceived exertion is the same ("as hard as I could"), mean you burned the same calories? No.

It's the same way you can go in to a lifting workout, and if you just ran 10 miles that morning, will you be able to lift as much to failure as on a day you did not run 10 miles? Not a chance. But you can feel like you are giving it the same effort, despite lower weight.

It's also why if you go in to a cardio workout with worn out muscles, you may feel tired but also feel like you are pushing as hard as you can, but the HR and pace give away the fact you aren't going as fast or as hard as normal. Tired muscles can't push a HR as high.

That's why VO2max and HRmax tests are fast ramping, take too long and worn-out muscle just prevents discovering what those maxes really are. You gotta ramp up the speed and incline fast, the goal is under 15, preferably 12 min.

The weighted vest though makes it not a low effort though. But it does mean you can add weight back on, and an evening walk at 4mph burns much more.
Maybe that's what you mean, burn more with the low key workouts as if you weighed more, instead of needing to increase intensity like pace.

Thank you for explaining. This is news to me and very interesting. What I meant by my last sentence is that as I train more I will eventually have better cardiovascular fitness and a walk that used to take me to 16x heart rate would no longer do and would "feel" relatively easier, and if I stay roughly at the same weight using a weighted vest I would get that superior calorie burn without needing to turn my walk into a run.

I'm saying this because when I first started walking, my max walking speed was 2 mph, now it's 4.1 mph and a 2 mph walk feels like a breeze. Granted I did lose weight so this definitely has something to do with it, but I'm generally more fit than I used to be back then.

You could only increase your speed so much before you are forced to run. Not the best idea for my bad knees.

Thank you for explaining. This is news to me and very interesting. What I meant by my last sentence is that as I train more I will eventually have better cardiovascular fitness and a walk that used to take me to 16x heart rate would no longer do and would "feel" relatively easier, and if I stay roughly at the same weight using a weighted vest I would get that superior calorie burn without needing to turn my walk into a run.

I'm saying this because when I first started walking, my max walking speed was 2 mph, now it's 4.1 mph and a 2 mph walk feels like a breeze. Granted I did lose weight so this definitely has something to do with it, but I'm generally more fit than I used to be back then.

You could only increase your speed so much before you are forced to run. Not the best idea for my bad knees.

It is indeed a great way to do it for bum need and limited equipment, besides being impact still for benefit to bones. Or some have increased the incline but stayed walking speed. In fact, you get over 10 % on treadmill, it's surprising what a workout that can be.

And what you describe is exactly where the cheaper Polar's fail too, they use your BMI (height & weight) in a range of good to bad (age & gender), to help calculate VO2max.

So if you get fit but keep your weight, your HR would be lower at the same pace. But those HRM's would see the lower HR as easier workout, and therefore lower calorie burn.

But because same weight and pace, same calorie burn.

Or as you have done, weight gone down, pace gone up, and outside that, HR has probably gone down even for the 4 mph walk with a weighted vest on.

Cardio system can get in to shape so much faster than you can lose weight.

I thought the same thing - the calories burned seem rather high on MFP but I suppose ppl use what it says and trust its judgement although I don't know who put the figures in to start with

The exercise database is a public one that many sites all use.

The values in them are based on weight, which for almost all activities is either the only factor for calorie burn or the biggest % of any variance.

Where they came from - studies.
Shortened description - Measure actual calorie burn of a bunch of people in a lab doing various exercises, divide their individual burns by their individual weights so that's not part of the factor and others could use it, and then divide by resting metabolism burn to get METS, so it can be equally applied to a population.

Now METS can be applied to anyone. 1 MET (resting) is 1.2 cal / kg / hr.

https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/references

I don't think the old databases though use that new info from studies and application above that is corrected METS. But it might be interesting to find your concerned activity and see what it came up with in the study for METS, and what your calorie burn would be for it.

Obviously a database can only be so big, but sometimes there other studies closer to what you do (Like Body Pump vs Body Combat) and what the variance was in the study, since people can indeed fall on low end of the range, or the big end actually.

I stand corrected. Even though you DO burn fewer calories doing the same exercise at the same weight as you get fitter, it is not as significant as I was led to believe (by a nutritionist and elite athlete trainer!). The article below is good.....and encouraging!


Yes, regular training can decrease your caloric expenditure. Just how many fewer calories you’ll burn when you’re well trained is highly individual, says Bryan Heiderscheit, professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation and director of the runners clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. However, the difference in calorie burn between your well-trained and less-trained self is not enough to warrant a crosstraining obsession.

“For the amount of calories that you might not spend as you become more experienced and refined, it’s not really worth thinking about” crosstraining, Heiderscheit says. Proof: One study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology determined that well-trained runners burn five to seven percent fewer calories than their nonathletic counterparts. A run you did as a newbie athlete that burned 500 calories, for example, might burn 465 to 475 calories when you’re better trained, assuming you’ve stayed the same weight.

That drop in calories spent signifies an increase in economy, the goal of most endurance runners because the miles get easier when the body’s not working as hard to fuel them.

But if your main goal is to burn the most calories possible on each run, up your training speed; several studies have shown that runners are most efficient at frequently used training paces, and that the faster you run, the more calories you’ll burn per mile. So quickening your clip may be the only tweak necessary to maintain the burn. Check out this Runner’s World calculator to see how a change in pace will affect your caloric expenditure. According to the calculator, if a 150-pound runner ran 12-minute pace for an hour, he’d burn 567 calories. Drop that pace to 11-minutes per mile, and he’d burn 618 calories an hour.

THE BOTTOM LINE: It’s likely you’ll burn slightly fewer calories the better trained you are. If you train at a constant pace, increasing it should help your well-trained self maintain the calorie burn of your newbie running days.

Source: http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/bodywork/fitness-coach/Do-seasoned-runners-burn-fewer-calories-than-newbies.html

Similar studies looking at elite cyclists showed an increase of mechanical efficiency of 3% - 5% -- AFTER FIVE YEARS. These are guys who are riding thousands of miles per year.

IMO, one of the main reasons why this misinformation continues to live one is due to the increased use of HRMs to "track" calories. 95% of the people who use HRMs haven't a clue about how they work, nor do they understand the underlying physiology behind calorie expenditure. Since most "trainers" and self-proclaimed "fitness experts" do little more than just parrot existing cliches, it is not surprising that incorrect information continues to be repeated as authority.

Here's the final nail in the whole "efficiency" coffin: even if it were true that "increased efficiency" resulted in fewer calories being burned, there is a simple response---the increased efficiency allows you to exercise at a higher workload, thus returning to the previous level of calories burned. Does anyone really expect to be doing the exact same workout intensity after 6-12 months that they did on day 1? The idea is patently absurd at its most basic level.

(Note that this discussions pertains to activities that involve simpler movements in which workloads can be increased in measurable increments. More unstructured activities---e.g. group ex classes--theoretically can be more affected by "efficiency" -- however, the primary effect is that there may be an upper limit to how hard one can work because of the movement involved--the above described relationship still exists).

OP, I agree there are many, many overestimates of caloric burn together with gross underestimates of calories input together with amazement at the lack of progress. Yes, it is hard to burn 1000 calories...

I will say that in my early months, I did record some rather high numbers (neighborhood of maybe 800 cals or so) for walking BUT these numbers were at a 15% incline for an extended period AND I was well within the class 2 level of obesity (BMI ~ 38). In that case, perhaps it was rather accurate... At any rate, accurate or not, I was losing weight at a significant rate at that point. The funny thing now, is that after two years I am actually able to RUN now and will average about 500-600 calories per hour burn for running at 5-6 mph... The difference is the grade of incline (usually 0 for a run) and my current weight being in the moderate overweight (BMI ~28) range.

That being said, I've seen people burn 700 calories for an hour of light to moderate housework while consuming a 200 calorie quesadilla (I've never seen a 200 calorie quesadilla)...

In the end the true tale is results... If you are getting RESULTS then what you are doing is working; if not, something is suspect.

Hard but not impossible, something to keep in mind. As mentioned, I often hit that mark or above but I certainly would be questioning the 700 calories burnt for light to moderate housework. Mind you, from experience a heavy housework session can definitely get the HR up and result in a fair amount of sweating! As far as the quesadilla, I doubt a 200 calorie one but again it is doable if you use a 100 calorie wrap and less than 100 calories in fillings folding over instead of using 2 wraps. I'm just thinking out loud because for every calorie entry where someone says it isn't possible, there usually are ways to achieve it. On the other hand, I'm not concerned what others are burning, I'm concerned what I'm burning :flowerforyou:

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.

When you get close to your goal weight with less than ten pounds to lose, it is advisable to not have a big calorie deficit. Aside of that, large calorie deficits are not encouraged because there is the concern of not getting the proper macros and micros. At 1,000 calories a day you are already under the minimum calorie recommendation for females so you may want to reconsider that. I too like the larger calorie deficit for losing.

I can run 50 mins & burn 600 cal. I can then do another workout that will burn 400...... how is 1000 calorie burn hard now? I've been doing 600+ burns since day 1

The MFP estimation are indeed high, even for a fattie like me, but I want to track the number of minutes I exercise each day, so I log them all and that's it. I never ate back all my exercise calories, I eat probably 20% of the calories "earned" by exercise.

I would feel really annoyed if someone was judgemental about me and my exercise logging just because MFP is overestimating. To each his own.

Exactly! This is one reason why many choose to keep their diaries private.

Meh. These discussions happen alot.

I regularly burn an excess of 1,000 calories. Just a quick ride home burned over 1,000 in 48minutes. And the last time I did an indoor "spin class" it was well over 1,000 calories. I wear a HRM with a hard chest strap, I know all my cool #s like VO2max & the resting heart rate, and of course my age factors in.

It probably would matter way more if I was lifting heavy weights & pushing some serious barbells with discs the size of my legs. Think about those weight lifters who are lifting heavy but get to eat a ton of food and don't have "1,000 calorie burns" logged in.

My diary will say I burn over 1,000 calories in a day easily.. but I usually do a bootcamp class over lunch and strength + spin after work. I mix it up a bit, but some configuration of that sort.

I wear a heart rate monitor and try to make sure I am not over estimating

I have seen logs that will relate a higher than 1,000 calories burn with walking and Zumba. I do not care how long and fast you walk or how many Zumba classes you do, you are not burning 1,000 calories on those alone.

That's a pretty presumptuous claim to make. What makes you think just because YOU don't burn that many calories that everyone who burns more is wrong! I am heavier, have a significant amount of muscle, so yes, I CAN burn 1000 calories just walking alone, and can burn well over 700 in one hour of Zumba. It's called working my *kitten* off and getting my heart rate up! And the 40 pounds that I lost while logging those and eating my calories back would indicate I wasn't wrong...