Exercise machine cal burned totals

Merkavar
Merkavar Posts: 3,082 Member
edited November 11 in Health and Weight Loss
how accurate in general are treadmills, elliptical, stationary bikes calorie counters.

Say I'm on a treadmill, I enter my weight and after 20 mins it saying I have burnt 240 calories.

Is this number likely to be accurate. I am not fussed over 10-15cal but if in reality I only burned 180 then I can see that being an issue.

Probably depends on brands but I figured a treadmill will take into account your weight, speed, incline, etc more factors, suggesting more accuracy.

Replies

  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
    It's probably not totally accurate. Doesnt' really matter though, it's all an estimate. Eat however much of it back that you want (at least 50%) and adjust the intake up/down based on results after a month or two of this kind of intake.
  • BWBTrish
    BWBTrish Posts: 2,817 Member
    edited February 2015
    According to some sites they are about 20 to 25% off.

    But i took the more safe way lol, i only eat 1/4 back. And i use a HRM.
    Some treadmills have a HRM build in the handles. So you can get a more accurate number.
  • Merkavar
    Merkavar Posts: 3,082 Member
    TheOwlhouseDesigns wrote: »
    According to some sites they are about 20 to 25% off.
    /quote]

    I think that is an acceptable variance. Considering they don't take into account height etc

    I have been using the cal on the machine. I think I will continue to as well.

    Thanks
  • lemonlionheart
    lemonlionheart Posts: 580 Member
    edited February 2015
    That depends on your stats and how hard you're working. If you are quite heavy and running hard, I'd say 240 in 20 minutes is possible, but if you are walking it's definitely overestimated. I'm relatively small, and I burn around 500 calories per hour going as hard as I can on the elliptical. I've been told that it is very difficult for anyone to burn more than 10 calories per minute, though I think exceptions exist for people who are quite overweight and working hard. The machines are pretty notorious for overestimating burns, many people on here only eat back half their exercise calories for that reason.
  • Merkavar
    Merkavar Posts: 3,082 Member
    lemonlionheart wrote: »
    I've been told that it is very difficult for anyone to burn more than 10 calories per minute.

    Yeah that's what I tend to aim for. 10 cal per minute. I tend to walk at 6km/h and increase the incline so I get to 200+ after 20 min. Add in a bit of jogging etc.



  • AFitJamie
    AFitJamie Posts: 172 Member
    edited February 2015
    Calorie burn due to exercise does vary from person to person - basically as a result of the muscle you are putting to work... Machines are trying to estimate, but height and weight and age don't really speak to the amount of muscle you actually are putting to work - just an estimate of that...

    I have used a Heart Rate Monitor Polar wrist computer while on a machine that was also reading the HRM band i was wearing and providing its estimate.... I don't remember the exact numbers, but approximately, at the end of an hour, the machine said 600 calories and the HRM wrist computer suggested something like 400.... there can be a BIG variance between models that are predicting calories burned.

    Personally I would definitely take the calories burned estimates from machines with a great big grain of salt and not eat back much more than half of them...

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