Calories burned?

I would go with the machine. Everyone says MFP estimates high, so it's safer to go with the lower estimate. Or you could go somewhere in between?

mrscareyj wrote: »

I did 30 minutes elliptical yesterday, machine said 250ish cal burned. I put that info on here and it said 500 something...which one is more accurate?

Nobody is burning 500 calories in 30 minutes. It's incredibly difficult to burn more than about 10 calories per minute sustained...that's working really, really, really hard...which is why that level of effort generally can't be sustained by most people. For your average run of the mill cardio, most people can expect about 7-8 calories per minute above and beyond their basal burn.

At any rate, when using the MFP method you want to be as conservative as possible so that you can fuel your body and activity, but keep your energy deficit. One of the reasons so many people think the MFP method of eating back exercise calories doesn't work is because they really do think they burn a *kitten* ton of calories exercising...but you really don't.

To burn 500 calories in 30 minutes you need to be fit enough to run 5k in 30 minutes while weighing 250 pounds. Or 6k if you're 200 pounds.

Double that to get "elliptical miles".

I select the exercise and duration, and replace the calories with the estimate from the machine. All the ones I use at the gym are digital w/ HRM, and programmed for my stats.

If I do some other cardio without a monitor, i use 3 cal/min ( leasure swimming, ice skating, etc ) to calculate an estimate. I never track cals burned for strength training.

I'd agree with wolfman, 7-8/min for a fit person sounds about right. I average about 10-12/min on the treadmill, but I am carrying significant extra weight.