machine calorie count acuracy

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petey49
petey49 Posts: 58 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Does anyone know if the calorie counter on gym machines are accurate?

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  • cmw9696
    cmw9696 Posts: 123
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    i'm guessing not. Unless you are putting in your age, weight, etc. The machine is probably not calculating your heart rate either...your best bet is to wear a heart rate monitor
  • MisdemeanorM
    MisdemeanorM Posts: 3,493 Member
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    even those that enter age and weight are not always right. The True Striders say 800 and my HRM says like 450. A lot of the normal ellipticals are a lot closer though.

    (and the true striders take your age, weight, and have periodic HRMing and are still WAY off!)
  • sconnors16
    sconnors16 Posts: 16
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    I always assumed that they were as long as you put in the correct weight, however, I recently got a calorie counter/heart rate monitor, which I wore the last time I used the elliptical at the gym. While my heart rate was very close and in some cases right on, I noticed that the calories on my counter were an average of 25-30 below what the machine was telling me. I didn't think that was too horrible. Hope that helps!
  • petey49
    petey49 Posts: 58 Member
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    Thank you everyone. The elliptical machine I use asks for weight and does have HRM built into the handles. It may be off, but the scale says I am down 4 pounds since last week. I will take this with a grain of salt and assume only 2 pounds of real fat loss, since I know weight can vary. I want to see a progessive downward trend before I declare that I am well on the path. So even if the calorie counter is off, I am still burning something, this is progress! :drinker:
  • mcointreau
    mcointreau Posts: 20
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    My strider has an HRM in the handles, and the calorie count seemed way to high, but when I checked online using my HR it was actually under -- by one calorie. 25 minutes burned 337 calories, or 336. LOL. so I guess its good. (i'm using a sharper image elliptical strider). Great workout considering I felt like I was barely doing anything! My rowing machine and jogging outside are way more labor intensive feeling, but this was a nice change.
  • danipals
    danipals Posts: 143 Member
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    My elliptical at home registers almost double the calories of my HRM! That was disappointing to discover!
  • Cathy92
    Cathy92 Posts: 312 Member
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    The eliptical at the gym I use says I burn about twice what MFP says it should be...I use the middle # and never take the 'high' # just to be safe. AS long as I keep losing, I'm ok with it's inaccuracies.
  • antigeist
    antigeist Posts: 14
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    I think my treadmill underestimates calories, and I've heard you're meant to halve the machine calories. I think it really depends on the machine and like others have said, if you use a HRM or put in your weight. My treadmill sadly does not include either so once I get my paycheck, I'm out to get a HRM!
  • chantalbennett
    chantalbennett Posts: 91 Member
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    I was told that the machine adds your resting calories to what you are burning during the exercise. So if you were running for 30 mins and burned 300 cals it would add you resting calories for 30 mins to that as well to give you a higher cal burn... I'm guessing the reasoning is a motivation thing to keep people wanting to go back to the gym to see the high cal burns..
  • leafyq
    leafyq Posts: 21
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    The LifeFitness machines at my school's gym gives me about the same calories most online sources, so I keep that.
  • Vibette
    Vibette Posts: 9
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    Most "guestimations" of the machines are based on a specific weight, so unless it has you input a weight (and other relevant info), they're probably not accurate. Someone who weighs 120 lbs is not going to burn as many calories to run a mile as someone who weighs 220.

    I've used this site before: http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc Just input your weight and the amount of time you did whichever activity. It's a more accurate figure.

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