Really...is it possible to burn this many calories?

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Shandke
Shandke Posts: 116 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Ok, so I tried a little test to see how accurate or approximate the general calories burned on MFP was....I did a Turbo Fire 55 EZ. First time doing this, but I've been doing P90X &Insanity for about a year. So I wore my husbands heart rate monitor...it recorded the following....61 minutes. Ave heart rate 148, Max heart rate 185, in range for 38 minutes and that I burned 1092 calories.....is that even possible? Now I know it was set to male setting but we are the same age....and our target rates are slightly different....but still....

MFP said high intensity for 61 minutes burns 406......that's quite a range???

Replies

  • Nigel99
    Nigel99 Posts: 498 Member
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    It is probably off a bit, because you are using the HRM with your husband's settings. If it is like mine, it has the sex, age, height, weight - and if all of that is off, you won't be getting an accurate reading for yourself at all.

    That being said, you could probably burn a lot doing P90X or Insanity over 60 minutes. I regularly burn 400-500 in 40 minutes with P90, so you are likely up there in your burn - just not quite 1000, I don't think.
  • ButterflyKristen
    ButterflyKristen Posts: 109 Member
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    I'm not an expert, but here is what I know: The heart rate monitor is set for each individual user. You have to set it to each of the following personal criteria: resting heart rate (i.e. right when you wake in the a.m.); your age, weight, gender. Entering this informationallows the computer to calculate your max heart rate. I don't know what your husbands monitor's settings are, but it would not be accurate for you at all. At any rate, I doubt you burned 1000 calories in 61 minutes. I am 40 years old, weigh 157 and I burn that much in two hours of playing ultimate frisbee (includes a lot of sprinting up and down a field). My resting heart rate is around 50 bpm.

    Generally speaking, men burn more calories per minute than women b/c they generally have more muscle % than women.
  • jdr03272
    jdr03272 Posts: 5 Member
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    Hey everybody, first post.

    Calories burned with exercise depends on many factors. In a perfect world, we would take into account sex, age, body mass and composition, substrate utilization (blood tests), and amount of oxygen consumed per unit time. Since most people don't have access to a physiology lab, that means approximating with 1) sex, 2) weight, 3) heart rate, and then of course, time. For a given activity in a given period of time: men will burn more than women, heavier people more than lighter, and higher heart rate typically means greater exertion, so higher HR (generally) would mean more calories burned. The exception to that last part is well conditioned athletes whose muscle metabolome has changed as a result of their activity to optimize aerobic respiration and substrate oxidation, and whose hearts are more efficient pump, thus meaning they can burn more fuel at a lower HR.

    For the OP, if you used your husbands settings on the HR monitor, it will definitely overrate your calorie expenditure by a large margin, probably more like 400-600Cal than 1000Cal.

    As another example, many cardio machines use weight and work output as the variables to determine how many calories are burned. Thus you only enter your weight and perform the work. Increased weight means more calories burned because it takes more energy to move your own mass. Increased strength means you can perform more work and so more calories burned.

    Hope this helps!
  • Shandke
    Shandke Posts: 116 Member
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    Thanks everyone for the feedback......I knew it would make a difference, I just wasn't how much of a difference. I do have one other question. When do you consider your workout time complete? My question is that even when I completed the workout, my heart rate was still elevated for several more minutes. Do you wait until your rate gets closer to normal or....end your HR monitor program immediately following the work out???
  • LovelySnugs
    LovelySnugs Posts: 389
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    i usually do a bit of an extra cooldown after a workout, and i include part of that in the time. but not all, just cuz it makes me feel better to have that little extra cushion.
  • Lanfear
    Lanfear Posts: 524
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    Just as a comparison for you, I did the Turbo Fire EZ 55 class on Monday. I am 5 ft 6, female and currently weigh 144lbs. I did the "new to class" option and in 1 hr and 19 mins I burned 547 cals. :smile:
  • jeepmom22
    jeepmom22 Posts: 9
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    Another comparison, I am 5'10'' currently weigh 226lbs. I also did the new to class option and about 5 minutes of the stretch 10 class and I burned 1008 calories in 1 hour and 26 minutes. :happy:
  • Shandke
    Shandke Posts: 116 Member
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    Thanks everyone......I hope to get my own HRM soon to test it again. I appreciate the comparisons and thought was probably closer to where they should be. Thanks for the feed back and I will post again when I do this workout with my own HRM! :flowerforyou:
  • Lanfear
    Lanfear Posts: 524
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    Another comparison, I am 5'10'' currently weigh 226lbs. I also did the new to class option and about 5 minutes of the stretch 10 class and I burned 1008 calories in 1 hour and 26 minutes. :happy:

    Great burn LOL!
  • bmontgomery87
    bmontgomery87 Posts: 1,260 Member
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    Definately sounds too high. I can't see you burning that much.
    When I run I'll burn a max of 700 cals an hour rougly.

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