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elliptical calories burned at a gym?

jenniator
jenniator Posts: 475 Member
edited November 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
Hey everyone,

I finally conquered my fear and decided to join a gym! It was a bit intimidating at first, but once I was the machines, I felt so much better and actually enjoyed it.

The first machine I went on was a elliptical like machine that have the feet petals go up and down. I was on there for 30 minutes and I burned 275 calories.

The next machine I went on was the traditional elliptical (the one where the feet petal go in a circle) and I burned 343 calories in 30 minutes.

In total that is 618 calories. I've heard that the machines aren't always accurate with calories. So I was wondering if anyone could help me out and give me a estimate of how much I burned. I heard that with machine's you should take off 20% of the total, so it would be 494.40 calories. I'm not sure if that's true, so please let me know if it is.

I'm not sure if it matters, but I'm a 22 female that is 5'6 inches and I weigh around 199 lbs.

Replies

  • ChesKrieg
    ChesKrieg Posts: 24 Member
    Unless you are wearing something like a heart rate monitor, it is at best an estimate based off the information you entered in the machines. If you did not enter any information I would not trust it at all.
  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,588 MFP Moderator
    I am you but 4 years older. This isnt exactly a rule or anything, but what I do and has worked for me : I log 100 calories per mile. At my current weight it seems to be a good system. It makes for simple math, its less than I actually burn, and if I underestimate the burns then it makes up for any inaccuracy in logging. Do try to be as accurate as you can logging though, dont just rely on that.

  • njitaliana
    njitaliana Posts: 809 Member
    Just log it in the exercise section under cardio, then go to elliptical. Click it and see the calorie count it gives. MFP goes over on their estimation of calories burned, so you might have to adjust it.
  • emdeesea
    emdeesea Posts: 1,823 Member
    Ooh I'd be careful if I were you. Those machines can be deceptive. Work too hard on them when you've never used them before and you'll have almost debilitating leg muscle soreness the next or following day.

    As for calorie burn calculator, I use this one: http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc
  • palwithme
    palwithme Posts: 860 Member
    I work out on the elliptical and both MFP and the machine say I have burned 900 calories. But, when I do the math based on my weight lost over a period of months that can't be possible. It must be more like 400-500. This is why I don't eat back any of my exercise calories.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Impossible to say...there are no hard and fast rules...all machines are going to be calibrated differently so one may be more accurate than the other. If you're using the MFP method properly you should be eating back some exercise calories...you'll need to find some kind of reasonable allowance for estimation error.

    When I did MFP, I used a factor of 5-10 calories per minute based on my perceived level of effort and then compared that to what a machine or HRM or data base said and generally went with the lowest figure. In most cases, I put general cardio like this as an 8...so 8x60 = 480...your mileage will vary and you will have to make adjustments as you go per real world results. For me, walking the dog or whatever was like a 5 and anything above an 8 was really going hard...really to the point where I couldn't really sustain that kind of effort for a whole hour.
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