Some people seem to burn so many calories in exercise, how? What do you do?
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+1KameHameHaaaa wrote: »They are delusional, lying to themselves, and/or just working off incorrect information.
Not always true, especially for those of us going by our HRMs, not MFP or machine calculations
I do try to tell people the importance of this when I see people on my friend's list posting MFP calculated burns.
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Some interesting opinions here.....
What is a fact is that every calorie burn you see is an estimate. MFP, exercise machines and even my trusty Garmin HRM is estimating the burn by applying a formula calculation using the parameters you give it (age, height, weight, resting heart rate etc) and statistical data from clinical studies.
Bored yet? No? OK then.....
The wide variation is down to marketing (IMO). The makers of the Acme Stepper know that we want to believe that the 15 mins we spent gently walking up stairs burnt 600 calories, so they set their algorithm to tell us what we want to hear.
MFP wants us to use their app and keep racking up sponsorship revenue, so we get another very favourable calculation there.
It's widely accepted that a HRM gives us the closest estimate if you've configured it well. That makes a lot of sense to me because it is reading one measure of our exertion, our heart rate. But it's still applying that measure into an algorithm based on statistical averages. You may meet the standard deviation or be way outside of it. Each HRM may use a different algorithm. Nontheless I'd bet they are within 20%.
Over time, if you are tracking your calorie intake and expenditure and monitoring your weight you can get a pretty good sense for what you are really burning - I'm pretty confident I really did burn 3,788 calories on my run this Sunday.
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I did. I'm also over 90kgs and it took 4hrs 15 mins
Thank you for calling that out - I'm still on a high and nowhere near ready to stop talking about it yet
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According to my HRM I burn anywhere from 300-400 during a half hour of kickboxing.0
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People sometimes blame MFP for overestimation but it's not MFP as much as it is not paying attention to what really constitutes "vigorous" and "fast." Needs to be more honesty with yourself about how hard you're pushing.
I'd agree with that for some, but MFP has me as burning 550 cals for an hours Combat whereas my HRM calcs between 450-500. I do go flat out at that exercise, and couldn't do any more. My runs are likewise around 10-20% higher on MFP to that logged by my HRM.
Although both are only estimates, I'd expect the HRM to be closer than MFP.
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I am curious, I am aware different size people burn different numbers of calories for the same exercise, but I am just looking for exercise ideas.
I am getting back into running, about 12 miles last week and I have started weight machines at the gym (but have no idea how many calories I burn using these?!Not too fussed, its more about strengthening up)
Who does what and how many calories do you think you burn?
I cut my time in half before logging it. So if I do yoga for an hour, I log 30 minutes. I feel like that puts me in a "safe" place. I'm eyeballing the new FitBit Surge that tracks your steps and your heart rate. I'm working on justifying the $250 to myself I have a FitBit now and if I could go back and get something else - I would go with a HRM.
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I know I can work my booty off and not burn 1/3 of the calories people are logging on here. I tend to think it is a combo of some people are just delusional and I am an extremely low calorie burner. I just switched to the TDEE method so I don't have to worry about how many calories I'm burning because it is so frustrating for me to work out for an hour and only have burned a couple hundred calories when everyone else is logging thousands of calories burned.0
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Depends on your body. Do you have a heart rate montior? They are a great tool. Roughly, I burn about 100 cals every 10 minutes at a constant jog.0
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NoelFigart1 wrote: »I am curious, I am aware different size people burn different numbers of calories for the same exercise, but I am just looking for exercise ideas.
I am getting back into running, about 12 miles last week and I have started weight machines at the gym (but have no idea how many calories I burn using these?!Not too fussed, its more about strengthening up)
Who does what and how many calories do you think you burn?
I take my calcs from Runkeeper, and they base it on body weight. I suspect it's overestimating, to be honest. The idea that even at my weight it is humanly possible to burn 500 calories in forty-odd minutes is a bit suspicious. (I swim)
If you can run 10km in around 40-45 you will burn as much as 800 calories. This is not uncommon0 -
I did. I'm also over 90kgs and it took 4hrs 15 mins
Thank you for calling that out - I'm still on a high and nowhere near ready to stop talking about it yet
Awesome job! I burned about 4000 calories during my last marathon in May, with a 4:28.
I typically burn 850 to 950 calories per hour at an HR of 135-145.
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Over time, if you are tracking your calorie intake and expenditure and monitoring your weight you can get a pretty good sense for what you are really burning - I'm pretty confident I really did burn 3,788 calories on my run this Sunday.
Nice work. My HRM usually tells me about 2500 for a marathon, but I am a twiggy guy. One thing I have done is keep a spreadsheet of calories eaten, calories burned as measured by my Garmin, my weight that week, etc and have been calculating a running total so as to more accurately calculate my calorie expenditure. What I have found is that the Garmin must be within about a 10% accuracy on its calorie burn numbers since it pretty much is spot on predicting my weight.
At the same time though, I just ran 13 miles of tempo intervals as a training run for my next full marathon and my Garmin tells me it was a 1485 calorie effort. I'll believe it.0 -
People sometimes blame MFP for overestimation but it's not MFP as much as it is not paying attention to what really constitutes "vigorous" and "fast." Needs to be more honesty with yourself about how hard you're pushing.
I'd agree with that for some, but MFP has me as burning 550 cals for an hours Combat whereas my HRM calcs between 450-500. I do go flat out at that exercise, and couldn't do any more. My runs are likewise around 10-20% higher on MFP to that logged by my HRM.
Although both are only estimates, I'd expect the HRM to be closer than MFP.
Yeah, I'm sure MFP is a little off (everything is really since everything is just an estimate). But it's not off by hundreds as much as it is people logging incorrectly. I think the biggest offenders are aerobics, circuit training, etc and when walkers/runners don't pay attention to pace. That's why I tend to play it safe since HRM can't work accurately for anything I do sadly.0 -
NoelFigart1 wrote: »I am curious, I am aware different size people burn different numbers of calories for the same exercise, but I am just looking for exercise ideas.
I am getting back into running, about 12 miles last week and I have started weight machines at the gym (but have no idea how many calories I burn using these?!Not too fussed, its more about strengthening up)
Who does what and how many calories do you think you burn?
I take my calcs from Runkeeper, and they base it on body weight. I suspect it's overestimating, to be honest. The idea that even at my weight it is humanly possible to burn 500 calories in forty-odd minutes is a bit suspicious. (I swim)
If you can run 10km in around 40-45 you will burn as much as 800 calories. This is not uncommon
I know it's based on rate as well as weight. If we go by the idea that swimming distance is .25 of running distance, I'm working out at more of a rate of a little over 8km an hour. Not that fast, I think.
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29 male, 183 lbs. Did insanity yesterday for an hour and burned 1102 calories0
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When I do an Orange Theory class we wear HRMs and I usually burn between 500-600 for an hour of pretty high intensity exercise.0
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I consider running my primary activity, and I use the formula quoted above (which lines up with Runkeeper), and gives me 93 x miles run, so I roughly estimate in my head by multiplying by 100 and reducing it--like this morning I ran 6.5 miles so I assumed about 600 calories.
I use this to estimate consistent hard cardio as about a similar number (500/hour instead of the 600/hour that the running comes to, to be conservative about it), and something less strenuous (like a lower intensity bike ride) maybe half that, with strength training even less.
But I think about this just to keep myself honest. I don't really try to get a precise exercise calorie number but am currently eating more on exercise days (even if a lower calorie burn like weights) and less on my rest day and I input calories to achieve this. If I don't lose doing this I will decrease my base calories.0 -
29 male, 183 lbs. Did insanity yesterday for an hour and burned 1102 calories
Way to resurrect a zombie thread from last October!
I gotta say, though, 1102 calories in an hour seems like a pretty serious overestimate. Running at a 7:30/mile pace (i.e. 8 mph), I burn about 105 calories a mile, which equals 840 calories an hour. I'm 150 lb. Riding my bike at 17-18 mph on flat terrain burns about 550 calories an hour. Those estimates come from my Garmin Forerunner 620 and Edge 800, which consider the difficulty of the terrain and my fitness level as well as heart rate. Where are you getting your estimate from?0 -
i either workout hard or workout long. I do intervals, mixed with steady state cardio, or steady state cardio for a long time.0
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I use the 600/hr as a baseline even though while cycling my garmin-HRM-starve often puts the figure higher according to the rides intensity.
The great thing about cycling for me is that a 4 hour bike ride is enjoyable even when I am working vigorously.0 -
I use a chest strap HRM with customized heart rate zones based on my resting heart rate and max heart rate. I am overweight (technically obese) at 6 foot 2 inches and 234 pounds (BMI = 30.0).
I am a distance runner and currently burn an average of around 180 cals/mile with a +/- 20 cal/mile variance. This has been consistent through a few different running apps that work with my HRM (Digifit iCardio, MapMyFitness, Wahoo Fitness).
My last two 6 mile runs, a nice middle distance between my shorter runs (3 to 4 miles) and long runs (10-12 miles) burned:
5.97 miles, 1:18:51, 1081 calories (181/mile), Wahoo Tickr Run HRM, MapMyFitness app
5.95 miles, 1:10:44, 1240 calories (208/mile), Wahoo Tickr Run HRM, MapMyFitness app
My last run using the Wahoo Fitness App:
4.0 miles, 44:10, 728 calories (182/mile), Wahoo Ticker Run HRM, Wahoo Fitness app
My last run using the Digifit iCardio app:
4.1 miles, 46:42, 820 calories (200/mile), Scosche Rhythm HRM, Digifit iCardio app
For longer runs using these apps (No long Wahoo Fitness run because the app crashes a lot, especially on long runs, total piece of junk app in my opinion):
12.25 miles, 2:47:00, 2262 calories (184/mile), Scosche Rhythm HRM, Digifit iCardio app
12.01 miles, 2:30:06, 2335 calories (194/mile), Wahoo Tickr Run HRM, MapMyFitness app
Do I think they are spot on accurate? No. I think they are about 10% to 15% overstated based on my calorie intake over the last 8 months compared to my HRM calculated calories burns. So I eat back most of my calories, but not all. It works for me. However, I think if you have your heart rate info figured out and use a good HRM, you don't have to eat back only half of your calories.
This is running only, of course. HRM's are notoriously inaccurate for lower impact cardio and resistance training. In those cases I take estimates from apps (not using an HRM) and only eat back half of the calories. That works well.
Just for perspective. Since a lot of people burn at a 100 cal/mile rate. Clearly I'm not there yet. I do have more weight to lose though.0 -
Oh. One more thing. If this matters to anyone.
Very recently I have done a few runs with NO HRM, and looked at the calorie burn estimates in the MapMyFitness app (which a great number of people claim overstates calorie burn). The numbers on each one were within the 180/mile +/- 20/mile I record with an HRM.
I thought that was interesting.
For whatever that's worth.
I was a bit surprised myself. It might be that the app used my prior HRM data to help its calculations. I am as perplexed why it matched up as probably anybody else.
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There are a couple of people on here who regularly claim to burn 1,500+ calories in a two hour time frame. Sorry, but I don't believe it. In the average world, who can go at the rate and speed needed to burn 750 calories an hour for two hours a day???0
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I run, walk, and lift.
Calculators estimate a net burn of 88 cals per mile for me for running. I usually figure on 80 cals though it may be more than the 88. I'm running outside with wind and smallish hills.
Calculators estimate a net burn of 63 cals per mile for me for walking. I usually don't even bother counting it unless I'm going for a good long while. Like a couple of days ago - 6.5 miles in around 2 hours. My poor dog was stuck in a crate all day and needed it.
Who knows with lifting. It depends on how much weight you're lifting what distance, how efficient that articular lift is, and how much damage you're doing to your muscles that needs repairing ... too complicated and not worth nitpicking. I figure 100 cals as a conservative ballpark for an hour of heavy lifting. In practice it's probably more. When I was bulking, I found I had to eat a bit more than I was anticipating in order to gain weight slowly and consistently.0 -
There are many many algoritms for tracking calorie burn out there. IMO the single best method, especially for any cardio is using a heart rate monitor such as the wahoo tckr and an app or fitnes tracker to anaylize your workout data. Strength training HRM is not as effective a calculating calorie burn0
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It's very easy for a person with high aerobic fitness to burn lots of calories at a relative low effort level.0
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