How Many Calories Truly Burned?!

Avee717
Avee717 Posts: 1 Member
edited March 7 in Fitness and Exercise
Question for calorie burners out there. My husband and I went on a 3.18 mile hike. It took us an hour and 16 minutes at a 24:08 min/mi. We gained 677 ft. At the end of the hike my tracker said I burned 904 calories! I was using MapMyFitness. That's an AMAZING amount of calories to burn in an hour. However! I also tracked the same hike, at the same time, using a different program that only calculated 440 calories burned. Why is this? How can one program say 904 and another say 440? Can anyone help me? Also...which program can I trust?! Thanks!

Replies

  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
    .3 * weight in pounds * distance in miles = approximate net calories burned on flat terrain

    If you descended the same amount you climbed, the slopes tend to cancel each other out for the most part.
  • Chief_Rocka
    Chief_Rocka Posts: 4,710 Member
    Avee717 wrote: »
    Question for calorie burners out there.

    not even once
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,864 Member
    It is best to be conservative...also realize that it is really, really, really hard to burn more than about 10 calories per minute above and beyond your basal calories...10 calories per minute is basically a level of sustained effort for which you cannot even hold a conversation.

    The 440 number is probably closer to accurate...and still might be slightly inflated.
  • gvhunterollie
    gvhunterollie Posts: 74 Member
    brianpperkins wrote: »
    .3 * weight in pounds * distance in miles = approximate net calories burned on flat terrain

    If you descended the same amount you climbed, the slopes tend to cancel each other out for the most part.

    The slopes do not cancel each other out when you have uneven terrain! The amount of effort used in braking your speed may not be as much effort as climbing, but they definitely do not "cancel out"

    Unfortunately, I do not have a better answer on how to calculate it. I generally take what MapMyFitness or MapMyHike calculates, manually edit the entry to half that amount, and then try to only eat back half of those.

  • JeffseekingV
    JeffseekingV Posts: 3,165 Member
    edited November 2014
    Avee717 wrote: »
    Question for calorie burners out there. My husband and I went on a 3.18 mile hike. It took us an hour and 16 minutes at a 24:08 min/mi. We gained 677 ft. At the end of the hike my tracker said I burned 904 calories! I was using MapMyFitness. That's an AMAZING amount of calories to burn in an hour. However! I also tracked the same hike, at the same time, using a different program that only calculated 440 calories burned. Why is this? How can one program say 904 and another say 440? Can anyone help me? Also...which program can I trust?! Thanks!

    Log it as 440 and see what happens over time. Especially if it's a hike you regularly take. 900 seems like quite a bit for 3.18 miles and only 677 ft in evaluation. My old hike was 1.5 miles but 1,000 ft in elevation change. My best going up was 45 min and I was heaving and pouring sweat at the end. Rest and try not to fall down the mountain on the way down
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