Most accurate estimation of calorie burn?

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krupskaya
krupskaya Posts: 24 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I would like to get a reasonable estimation of the calories I burn in my cardio workouts. The cardio machines give one figure, my heart rate monitor (Polar FT4) a higher figure and MFP a higher one again. So for two hours cardio today I was told I'd worked off 800 by the machines, 960 by my HRM and a ridiculously big figure by MFP. I think I can discount the MFP estimation but which one of the other two should I use - any views?

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  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    For moderate intensity workouts, Polar heart rate monitors have been shown to be accurate. For low and high intensity, they aren't. The accuracy of the other two methods are suspect anyway because they aren't based on the actual work of the person but on the typical person doing the same thing.
  • esjones12
    esjones12 Posts: 1,363 Member
    edited November 2014
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    The general consensus from what I've seen is HRM's are the most accurate because it measures your personal heart rate during the activity. Plus a lot of people don't take the time to enter their age/weight into the gym machines. Your HRM should be more personalized. I would pick one and stick with it for 2-3 weeks and see how that effects the scale. If you don't notice a change try only logging that you burned 75% of the calories your HRM told you you did, etc.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
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    Was it steady state cardio, as in moving constantly with very little interruption for those 2 hours? If so - the HRM should be fairly accurate. But if there was a lot of start/stop involved then its going to be hard to say.
  • Hornsby
    Hornsby Posts: 10,322 Member
    edited November 2014
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    HRMs give you your gross burn. Since you were doing cardio for 2 hours, you would need to subtract the number of calories you would have burned by doing nothing. 960 - (BMR/24)x2. That would give you your net burn and that's the number you should go with in my opinion.
  • krupskaya
    krupskaya Posts: 24 Member
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    Thankyou all for taking the time to reply - I am taking it all in.
    StaciMarie1974 wrote: »
    Was it steady state cardio, as in moving constantly with very little interruption for those 2 hours? If so - the HRM should be fairly accurate. But if there was a lot of start/stop involved then its going to be hard to say.

    Yes, steady state, I did have a bathroom break but paused the HRM for the time i was otherwise engaged and not working out.

  • krupskaya
    krupskaya Posts: 24 Member
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    Hornsby wrote: »
    HRMs give you your gross burn. Since you were doing cardio for 2 hours, you would need to subtract the number of calories you would have burned by doing nothing. 960 - (BMR/24). That would give you your net burn and that's the number you should go with in my opinion.

    That's very insightful - I didn't think of that but that is obviously an important factor. Many thanks for pointing that out.

  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    Hornsby wrote: »
    HRMs give you your gross burn. Since you were doing cardio for 2 hours, you would need to subtract the number of calories you would have burned by doing nothing. 960 - (BMR/24). That would give you your net burn and that's the number you should go with in my opinion.

    THAT is pretty awesome!

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