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iPhone 5s steps tracking vs. Treadmill calories counting

Hi there,

I've been trying to use my iPhone 5s to track calories burned through exercise on a treadmill, but the amount of calories the phone is reporting is about 5x higher than what the treadmill is reporting.

On a 30 min, light paced/short run exercise, the treadmill reported 150 cal whereas the iPhone reported 810 cal burned.

Which one should I trust?

Thanks in advance.

Replies

  • cantfail
    cantfail Posts: 169 Member
    If those are the only 2 choices, go with the treadmill. 810 calories in 30 minutes is way out of line.
  • huntergreene71
    huntergreene71 Posts: 21 Member
    My treadmill will give me numbers in the 800's but it takes 65 minutes with 10 of it jogging. For a 257 lb man that is.
  • are both devices measuring in calories or is one in calories and one in kilojoules?
  • missiontofitness
    missiontofitness Posts: 4,059 Member
    My fitness app glitches constantly if I am tracking indoors, and it will say I've gone .5 mile and burned nearly 80 calories in 4 minutes walking at a normal pace. I trust fitness apps for tracking distances outside and timing me; not for their cal counts. I compare them to the fitness database and will trust a machine that is physically tracking my HR over an app any day.
  • PokeyBug
    PokeyBug Posts: 482 Member
    My advice is that neither will be accurate. I've found a site that I think is decent. They make allowances for incline, which makes a huge difference, and even give you the equation they use in the calculations, so you can see how they arrive at the figure they give you. The only thing I don't like is that I'd prefer to give the rate and time at which I'm exercising, and -- dammit -- they ask you to enter time and distance. Since my treadmill only gives distances in tenths of a mile, I have to use 8th grade algebra to figure my distance accurately enough to satisfy my obsessive-compulsive nature (rate x time = distance). shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/walking-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx