Calorie Burn Overestimation...?

zoom2
zoom2 Posts: 934 Member
edited September 25 in Fitness and Exercise
Seems like the general consensus around MFP and among friends of mine on the site is that the calorie burn estimates are WAY generous...but just HOW generous? 10%...20%? I will say that I am finding that I am not nearly as hungry as I should be were I actually working with a true 500 calorie/day deficit. I am also not losing weight like I would expect. Granted, I often don't bother logging on the weekends, but I would still expect to lose a half # or more every week if I were truly having a 500 calorie/day deficit 5/7 days.

So has anyone estimated just how generous MFP's exercise calorie counts are? I'm thinking of rounding my workout times down by 10-20% as a start.
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Replies

  • sarahs440
    sarahs440 Posts: 405
    bump
  • thisisjulz
    thisisjulz Posts: 48
    I generally go with what the machine says, because sometimes MFP gives me double the actual calories i've burned on a treadmill, elyptical. I don't know if that helps.
  • Brittney24
    Brittney24 Posts: 105
    I think the only true way to tell is to invest in a HRM but I've heard those aren't 100% accurate as well. I'm curious too.

    Also I find the machines are often A LOT higher than the time I'd enter on MFP and the calories it says I burn.
  • smrfyross
    smrfyross Posts: 11 Member
    I wear a HRM so I have a pretty clear idea of what I burn. I find that for most things it is very high. For example it tells me 1000+ calories for my kickboxing class and my watch will tell me low 600s. And in that class my heart rate is high and I am working my butt off. a HRM is really the only way to really know unfortunately......good luck!
  • chic_mama_25
    chic_mama_25 Posts: 90
    I dunno.. I wear a HRM and I found the calorie estimates that MFP gives to be very close to what my HRM says.
    Are you sure you aren't overestimating how fast you run? (for example)
  • allison7922
    allison7922 Posts: 276 Member
    I looked on several "calories burned" websites and and calculated that Zumba was about 450 per hour for my height and weight so I just added my own to this site.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    Seems like the general consensus around MFP and among friends of mine on the site is that the calorie burn estimates are WAY generous...but just HOW generous? 10%...20%? I will say that I am finding that I am not nearly as hungry as I should be were I actually working with a true 500 calorie/day deficit. I am also not losing weight like I would expect. Granted, I often don't bother logging on the weekends, but I would still expect to lose a half # or more every week if I were truly having a 500 calorie/day deficit 5/7 days.

    So has anyone estimated just how generous MFP's exercise calorie counts are? I'm thinking of rounding my workout times down by 10-20% as a start.

    A 500 cal deficit 5/7 wold be 0.7lbs/week assuming you are at, not above maintenance, on the other 2 days.

    The margin of error for cals burned is different for everyone. MFP plugs in your age, weight, gender, height, into predetermined calculators for the activities. What MFP fails to do is take into account intensity, Heart Rate, and you current fitness level. The less fit you are the more you will burn doing the same exercises. So MFP may under-estimate by 25% for some users yet over-estimate by as much as 50% for other users.
  • AdamATGATT
    AdamATGATT Posts: 573 Member
    According to my Polar HRM, MFP is low FOR ME in caloric burns.

    Edit: Just to prove erickirb's point.
  • chic_mama_25
    chic_mama_25 Posts: 90
    Also I was really hungry all the time for the first 1-2 weeks of doing MFP, now my body has got 'used' to the new amounts of food and I feel pretty normal. And I have been losing about 1lb per week.
  • jrueckert
    jrueckert Posts: 355 Member
    Yeah I don't think you'll ever know an exact. Even HRMs aren't totally exact. And you'll never know the EXACT amount of calories in your food either ... so estimate the best you can.
  • chic_mama_25
    chic_mama_25 Posts: 90

    The margin of error for cals burned is different for everyone. MFP plugs in your age, weight, gender, height, into predetermined calculators for the activities. What MFP fails to do is take into account intensity, Heart Rate, and you current fitness level. The less fit you are the more you will burn doing the same exercises. So MFP may under-estimate by 25% for some users yet over-estimate by as much as 50% for other users.

    good point!!
  • fullerlj
    fullerlj Posts: 25
    They are total estimations...I recommend either a HRM or BodyBugg if you can afford it. I don't have either as of now ($$$) so I log my workouts and my food and take the calorie burn with a grain of salt. I figure as long as I am consuming at or under my BMR and exercising then I should be ok.
  • jsteras
    jsteras Posts: 344 Member
    I have a calorie calculator and going by my height and weight MFP is lower calories burnt. I just go with what they say. I'm afraid if I go by the calculator I will be thinking I burnt more calories than I did. I eat back 75% of exercise calories on most days that allows for any discrepancy on counting calories taken in or burnt.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    Yeah I don't think you'll ever know an exact. Even HRMs aren't totally exact. And you'll never know the EXACT amount of calories in your food either ... so estimate the best you can.

    That is true but studies have shown that over 70% of caloric burn can be attributed to the info from the HR (HR, age, weight, height, gender). If you have V02 Max this goes up to over 80%. That being said they draw a linear line based on the HR info and estimate a caloric burn that should be within 5% of what you "actually" burn.
  • angp7711
    angp7711 Posts: 324 Member
    I don't use the MFP numbers either. For me they are WAY off . For ex. on the elliptical MFP was 3 times higher than my calorie counter (the machine itself was about 1.5times off as well). I agree that you really do have to take your fitness level/cardiovascular strength into an account and the online calculations don't do that. If you want a closer picture I would go with a HRM. I use a bodybug for my count.

    Ang
  • zoom2
    zoom2 Posts: 934 Member
    Are you sure you aren't overestimating how fast you run? (for example)

    Nope, I run and bike with a Garmin Forerunner and the speed/pace it shows is reasonably accurate.
  • zoom2
    zoom2 Posts: 934 Member
    The less fit you are the more you will burn doing the same exercises. So MFP may under-estimate by 25% for some users yet over-estimate by as much as 50% for other users.

    I think this is probably the big kicker for me. I've been running solidly for over 5 years and biking regularly for over a year. Last year I logged 1000 miles on-foot and 3500 on the bike. So I'm probably a lot more efficient than what MFP expects.
  • zoom2
    zoom2 Posts: 934 Member
    Perhaps I should start using the HRM that came with my Garmin (I have the 305 for the wireless capabilities with the cadence/speed/distance sensor device for my bike, not for the HRM device). I've been loathe to even try it, since most other "well endowed" gals I know have said that it's not comfortable under their sports-bra band and chafes like mad.
  • AdamATGATT
    AdamATGATT Posts: 573 Member
    Perhaps I should start using the HRM that came with my Garmin (I have the 305 for the wireless capabilities with the cadence/speed/distance sensor device for my bike, not for the HRM device). I've been loathe to even try it, since most other "well endowed" gals I know have said that it's not comfortable under their sports-bra band and chafes like mad.

    I know some makers have HRM straps built into sports bras. You can check to see if Garmin has one as well.
  • zoom2
    zoom2 Posts: 934 Member
    Perhaps I should start using the HRM that came with my Garmin (I have the 305 for the wireless capabilities with the cadence/speed/distance sensor device for my bike, not for the HRM device). I've been loathe to even try it, since most other "well endowed" gals I know have said that it's not comfortable under their sports-bra band and chafes like mad.

    I know some makers have HRM straps built into sports bras. You can check to see if Garmin has one as well.

    They don't (only way to use the Garmin HRM is with the supplied strap). And no one makes them for anything larger than a C-cup, unfortunately. Therin lies the rub...literally. :laugh:
  • sh0ck
    sh0ck Posts: 168 Member
    A lot of what factors in to how many calories you burn is based on how much you weigh.

    I always just pay attention to what the machine tells me and then input that for my exercise. If I don't have a machine to tell me how many calories I burned then I usually do my best to underestimate the time that I spent doing an activity to account for the over-estimation on a lot of the MFP entries.
  • Ely82010
    Ely82010 Posts: 1,998 Member
    I always used and use the MFP database to calculate calories burned and it worked for me. Sometimes this database gives me lower numbers than the machines at the gym, so I take the machine's numbers.

    Maybe for hardcore runners and people that use high intensity DVD workouts, the HRM is a better solution.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    I always used and use the MFP database to calculate calories burned and it worked for me. Sometimes this database gives me lower numbers than the machines at the gym, so I take the machine's numbers.

    Maybe for hardcore runners and people that use high intensity DVD workouts, the HRM is a better solution.

    If you don't have a HRM, I would suggest going with the lowest number that way you don't overeat by eating back more calories than you burned.
  • zoom2
    zoom2 Posts: 934 Member
    A lot of what factors in to how many calories you burn is based on how much you weigh.

    I always just pay attention to what the machine tells me and then input that for my exercise. If I don't have a machine to tell me how many calories I burned then I usually do my best to underestimate the time that I spent doing an activity to account for the over-estimation on a lot of the MFP entries.

    I thought MFP did base the calorie burn estimates on individual users' current weights...or am I wrong on this?
  • tabbychiro
    tabbychiro Posts: 223 Member
    Perhaps I should start using the HRM that came with my Garmin (I have the 305 for the wireless capabilities with the cadence/speed/distance sensor device for my bike, not for the HRM device). I've been loathe to even try it, since most other "well endowed" gals I know have said that it's not comfortable under their sports-bra band and chafes like mad.

    I don't think the 305 uses HR for calories burned. It goes by speed & distance. But I think there are ways to figure calories burned from using HR. I just don't know how.

    I have never had a problem with the strap bothering me, most of the time I'm not even aware of it.

    eta: I got a New Leaf profile uploaded into my Garmin so that it would use HR to calculate calorie burn.
  • sh0ck
    sh0ck Posts: 168 Member
    A lot of what factors in to how many calories you burn is based on how much you weigh.

    I always just pay attention to what the machine tells me and then input that for my exercise. If I don't have a machine to tell me how many calories I burned then I usually do my best to underestimate the time that I spent doing an activity to account for the over-estimation on a lot of the MFP entries.

    I thought MFP did base the calorie burn estimates on individual users' current weights...or am I wrong on this?


    Hmmm. That may be the case. I was under the impression that it was based on something similar to what the food database is where it gets a lot of the information from user entry but I could be wrong. I haven't seen anything about it anywhere.
  • zoom2
    zoom2 Posts: 934 Member
    eta: I got a New Leaf profile uploaded into my Garmin so that it would use HR to calculate calorie burn.

    Ahhh...where did you find this?
  • fasttrack27
    fasttrack27 Posts: 324
    A lot of what factors in to how many calories you burn is based on how much you weigh.

    I always just pay attention to what the machine tells me and then input that for my exercise. If I don't have a machine to tell me how many calories I burned then I usually do my best to underestimate the time that I spent doing an activity to account for the over-estimation on a lot of the MFP entries.

    I thought MFP did base the calorie burn estimates on individual users' current weights...or am I wrong on this?

    I added an excercise called "spin,core,stretch" since its a routine I do 3x/week (I do weights two other days) and I got tired of inputting them seperately each time. I found that it shows up in the database and calculates based on the minutes input by the cal's I used when I first created it. So, it appears that if anyone else used this item then it would be calculated based on MY workout (not by any other formula per individual). Makes me think all the others in the system may be the same way - hence the wide array of answers you are getting. Getting a HRM is probably the only real solution.


    Hmmm. That may be the case. I was under the impression that it was based on something similar to what the food database is where it gets a lot of the information from user entry but I could be wrong. I haven't seen anything about it anywhere.
  • fasttrack27
    fasttrack27 Posts: 324
    Oops, my reply above got goofed up formatting - sorry. My response is 'in there somewhere' - towards the bottom.
  • zoom2
    zoom2 Posts: 934 Member
    Ahhh...Marc, that really sheds new light on things. So what I am inputting as a 90 minute workout could be showing the calorie burn for someone 50% heavier than I who entered the workout at some point. Oh, that would make a huge difference!
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