does biking really burn this many calories?

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rAc_hEl
rAc_hEl Posts: 246 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
im 207 pound female and im 5'2" and it says for 2 hours of biking (i do one hour morning one hour evening) it says i burn about 1000 calories. is that at least somewhat accurate. i know its NOT spot on. what do you think?

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  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    1000 calories for 120 minutes of exercise... seems reasonable to me. The only problem is that intensity can vary greatly with cycling, probably more than any other exercise, and that will be where the inaccuracy comes from.
  • patlebrun1
    patlebrun1 Posts: 20 Member
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    I was burning around 450-550 for a 40 minute ride last summer, depending of the intensity, a 14 kilometer run I was averaging 22 km/h. Male, 37 y/o, 200 pounds.
  • sjaplo
    sjaplo Posts: 974 Member
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    Stationary bike or outdoors? I ask because outdoors you have the ability to not pedal while going downhill. I have a to and from work route and mapmyride calculates the "home" route as more calories because my average speed is faster - well duh - its downhill :D
  • HopHead28
    HopHead28 Posts: 180 Member
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    I have used a HRM, MFP and another website to monitor calorie burn and all are very close in the values they give me.
    I ride with a speedometer to log average speed and duration and would recommend using something to track your overall speed. If you don't have something to do that already -- Map My Ride is a good ap to tell you overall speed, distance and calories burned and I believe it syncs with MFP.
    When you bike you are working the largest muscles in your body so the calorie burn is always quite large.

  • mangogirl272727
    mangogirl272727 Posts: 95 Member
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    The best thing is to have a device which measures heart rate, distance, speed, and duration. If you don't have such a device, map your ride out on mapmyride.com and keep track of how long the ride took you. Then plug in your stats (height, weight, gender, age) to the calorie calculator. That will give you a pretty dang accurate calorie count. About as accurate as you can get without a HRM.
  • HopHead28
    HopHead28 Posts: 180 Member
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    sjaplo wrote: »
    Stationary bike or outdoors? I ask because outdoors you have the ability to not pedal while going downhill. I have a to and from work route and mapmyride calculates the "home" route as more calories because my average speed is faster - well duh - its downhill :D

    Great point -- if you have a bike with gears there is usually always a higher gear you can shift to that allows you to keep your cadence consistent.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    rAc_hEl wrote: »
    im 207 pound female and im 5'2" and it says for 2 hours of biking (i do one hour morning one hour evening) it says i burn about 1000 calories.

    It really depends how hard and fast you're going, and what type of terrain you're riding over.

    That would be a little low for me to do in 2 hours, but that would be at 20-22mph on rolling hills.
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
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    It doesn't sound unrealistically high but as others have said the big variable is intensity.

    According to my Garmin 610 (which has one of the more reliable algorithms) I burned 642 cal last Monday night in my spinning class, but it was also a pretty intense ride (it's part of my triathlon club's program), on a recent outdoor ride (averaging 24 km/h) my Garmin showed 742 cal over a 76 min ride so.........it's not impossible given sufficient intensity.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    From everything I've read, 10 cals per minute is very reasonable for most people assuming a sustainably high effort.
  • Blacklance36
    Blacklance36 Posts: 755 Member
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    I burn 600 calories per hour on a stationary bike (pushing myself) so that sounds reasonable.
  • sjaplo
    sjaplo Posts: 974 Member
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    Just an additional thought - if you're doing cardio for an hour (depending on intensity) that's about when your glycogen stores will be depleted so you may want to consider replenishing with chocolate milk or some such so you don't feel fatigued.
  • ntnunk
    ntnunk Posts: 936 Member
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    It's absolutely reasonable, as many have said. But, also as many have said, there are a lot of variables. I'm a reasonably fit though still a little overweight cyclist and I routinely burn 400-600 calories per hour depending on what's doing the measuring (HRM or power meter) and how hard I'm riding.
  • mgmgrand3133
    mgmgrand3133 Posts: 8 Member
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    Sounds about right!! I'm 5'4" 217lbs and I ride an hour almost every day. I try to keep my cadence above 15mph and my calorie calculator tells me 600.

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