Calories burned on myfitness pal vs calorie monitor

Does your calorie monitor have a heart rate monitor with it? That's the most accurate way of calculating a calorie burn. Also is your watch giving you two different totals? One for calories burned during exercise and one for total daily calorie burn? You didn't say how long your workout routine was but it's pretty unlikely that you burned 1000 calories unless it was several hours. It's always best to err on the side of caution and go with the lower number so that you don't eat back too many calories.

I'm not trying to be a "bro-science" spoil sport, but I think it is highly unlikely that you are burning 1000 calories during a 30 minute routine. Have ou verified that all the settings on the watch are correct? Are you wearing a HRM during the workout?

Can me please explain to me why the calories burned on the exercise database are so low? Or is it correct? I bought a Perfect..... calories monitor and it says that I burn over 1000 calories when I exercise. I do the T25 Focus routine. Since T25 is not on the database, I was checking off general circuit training for 342 burned calories then I bought the watch and now I am really confused. I understand the BMR thing but once again the watch says my BMR (when I look at in the morning) is approx. 345 or something like that. Can someone please give me some advise???? I don't want to eat too many calories when I am not supposed to. Thanks:a bunch :grumble:

A heart rate monitor with a chest strap measures your heart rate constantly & compares that against your resting heart rate. That difference is the estimate for exertion level.

Now - if no chest strap - your monitor measures your heart rate once in awhile. If no chest strap - arm movements can throw the numbers off.

As others have stated, measuring calories for steady state cardio (what a HRM is designed for) is one thing, measuring for circuit or strength training or hiit...is something else.

Re: BMR (Calories for doing nothing).........figure out 1 days worth. Find your hourly BMR by dividing by 24. If your BMR was 1800....divide by 24 = 75 calories an hour. If you did a 1 hour workout you would net 75 calories out.

http://iifym.com/bmr-calculator/

OK - reread your post. Are you wearing a heart rate monitor 24/7? HRMs do not measure BMR....and are not designed for measuring that. Activity trackers do a fair job on measuring TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) ...that's BMR + activity level (ie: sedentary) + exercise. Activity trackers have a built in pedometer to measure steps. HRMs don't measure activity. Folks with activity trackers typically wear a FitBit 24/7......but may use a heart rate monitor for a specific cardio workout & adjust as needed, because FitBits don't have the heart rate component.

Thank you for the comments. I do have a Polaris heart monitor with the chest strap. The watch just displays time, % of goal achieved, steps, and calories burned. Like this morning I worked out for 25 minutes and I found an estimated calorie burn of 210 for T25 Speed dvd. That count was for a younger women of 152 lbs. I am 48 and much heavier so I thought I might burn more than that, maybe double??

Bigger burns more.....older burns less. Men burn more (more muscle mass)....than women. The over riding factor will be your exertion level. Over time the workout will be less challenging & burn fewer calories......fitness happens.

If you are really out of shape increase it by some....but double is too much I think.

My experience has been that MFP overestimates calories burned for steady state cardio. I've got a garmin GPS watch with chest strap heart rate monitor. If my heart rate is close to maxed out (165-175) for the duration of the run, it matches up fairly well with MFP. If I do an easier run and my heart rate is closer to 150-160, it's significantly less than what MFP states for the same speed/duration.