elliptical

crystal2442
crystal2442 Posts: 2
edited November 14 in Health and Weight Loss
My question is my husband & I are both doing my fitness pal so for cardio we have a weslo bike/elliptical. So this elliptical tells us the distance, palace, speed, & it count's our calories & times our workout. So I would like to know if when we are done doing a workout is it telling us the right calories that we burn for example I do 20 min & it tells me I just burned 675 or somewhere around there.dose that sound right?

Replies

  • megsta91
    megsta91 Posts: 92 Member
    Get a heart rate monitor. You can't trust those machines
  • crystal2442
    crystal2442 Posts: 2
    OK thank you megsta91.
  • ruggedshutter
    ruggedshutter Posts: 389 Member
    Machines will often be about 50% over the actual burn. Not sure how to calculate the elliptical machines but there are calculators that can calculate calorie burns for most exercises. I found that my treadmill is accurate at certain speeds but horribly off target most of the time.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    crystal2442 wrote: »
    I do 20 min & it tells me I just burned 675 or somewhere around there.dose that sound right?

    No chance of that being accurate I'm afraid.
    If you have a reasonable level of fitness and putting some effort in then 200 in 20 minutes "MIGHT" be more likely but there's huge variables.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    edited March 2015
    absolutely not - take 50% of the burn it gives you

    for me (at 163lbs) it takes me 12 mins at high resistance and decent speed to hit 100 calorie burn on my HRM
  • ali2407
    ali2407 Posts: 16 Member
    Sounds way off - if i do 30 mins of fairly intense work on the cross trainer i show as burning about 280 calories which seems right to me.
  • katiejanecollins
    katiejanecollins Posts: 236 Member
    I do 20 minutes on a medium level with 30% incline and it says I only burn 140 calories!
  • atypicalsmith
    atypicalsmith Posts: 2,742 Member
    The only machines I ALMOST trust to "count" calories are the ones where you have to first log in your gender, weight, and age. At least they are processing MY information, and not some generic 160 pound male or whatever.
  • Hitesc
    Hitesc Posts: 86 Member
    edited March 2015
    lol elliptical's are one of the worst in "counting calories burned", the only ones that are close to accurate are treadmills but even so, they are not 100%
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    atypicalsmith wrote: »
    The only machines I ALMOST trust to "count" calories are the ones where you have to first log in your gender, weight, and age. At least they are processing MY information, and not some generic 160 pound male or whatever.

    don't trust them - they're still wrong
  • wizzybeth
    wizzybeth Posts: 3,578 Member
    I did 30 mins last night at 5 mph on average and it came out to 340. I am 230 lbs. I only took 150 for logging in.
  • atypicalsmith
    atypicalsmith Posts: 2,742 Member
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    atypicalsmith wrote: »
    The only machines I ALMOST trust to "count" calories are the ones where you have to first log in your gender, weight, and age. At least they are processing MY information, and not some generic 160 pound male or whatever.

    don't trust them - they're still wrong

    Hah, I said "ALMOST" trust - I still don't trust them!
  • Mikolinz
    Mikolinz Posts: 23 Member
    my elliptical tells me i've burned 140 calories in 30 minutes.
  • jt880
    jt880 Posts: 163 Member
    Yep I half mine seems pretty accurate then.
  • bluejade16
    bluejade16 Posts: 5 Member
    Mine seems accurate, but I tend to go 175 strides/minute at max incline and 23 resistance ... otherwise yeah it does overestimate a little.
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