Cycling calorie counts?

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chouflour
chouflour Posts: 193 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
The stars have finally aligned, and I started bike commuting this week. I biked on Tuesday and felt good as long as I kept eating and eating. Today (Wednesday) I drove, but am STILL ravenous. My hunger cues are screwy, so I'm not sure if this is exercise-induced hunger or hormonal (aka insatiable) hunger.

MapMyRide (retroactive mapping, not the app) seems to think that I burned 940ish calories in 73 minutes, but I question my ability to burn 770 calories per hour. With online calculators varying from 700-1400, what do people find is reasonably accurate?

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Replies

  • hill8570
    hill8570 Posts: 1,466 Member
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    Assuming relatively flat terrain, burn is gonna depend on speed. For me, personally, this is a case where I've found the MFP calculator to be reasonably accurate -- Endomondo always seems too high. Just be sure to back out your RMR -- for me I'll back out 100 calories an hour (122 for a 73 minute ride), so you're not double-dipping.
  • chouflour
    chouflour Posts: 193 Member
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    Yeah, my commute is rolling all the way, which makes things a little more complex.

    If MFP is close to right on the calorie counts, I'll assume this is exercise-induced hunger, and feed it lots of protein.
  • canary_girl
    canary_girl Posts: 366 Member
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    According to my heart rate monitor I burn about 100 calories for every 10 minutes.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    edited March 2015
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    IME experience, MFP has overestimated by about a factor of 2 relative to bikecalculator.com. Strava is usually closer.

    You can also treat the ride as being flat, and then add in 1 calorie per 100kg of body weight per 1 metre of elevation/climbing. Not perfect, but it'll put you within a reasonable error bar.
  • AllanMisner
    AllanMisner Posts: 4,140 Member
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    Whenever I try to incorporate long hard or moderate cardio, my appetite soars, making it very hard to maintain a deficit. It might be easier to look at your calorie in/out over a week period rather than a day to see if cycling calories can help.
  • hill8570
    hill8570 Posts: 1,466 Member
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    chouflour wrote: »
    If MFP is close to right on the calorie counts, I'll assume this is exercise-induced hunger, and feed it lots of protein.

    Protein? Interesting...now that biking / running season has started in earnest, I've had to bump up my carbs significantly (when I start craving sugar, I know I'm undereating carbs). I've kept my protein steady at 1 g / lb of LBM.
  • chouflour
    chouflour Posts: 193 Member
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    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    IME experience, MFP has overestimated by about a factor of 2 relative to bikecalculator.com. Strava is usually closer.

    You can also treat the ride as being flat, and then add in 1 calorie per 100kg of body weight per 1 metre of elevation/climbing. Not perfect, but it'll put you within a reasonable error bar.

    MFP less RMR was awfully close to bikecalculator.com with a flat ride for this ride. They were both at the lower end of estimates I saw, and feel more realistic. I may just go with that and see how I do. The 1 calorie per 100kg (body weight plus bike weight?) per meter could be a useful tool though - do you have a reference for it?
    hill8570 wrote: »
    chouflour wrote: »
    If MFP is close to right on the calorie counts, I'll assume this is exercise-induced hunger, and feed it lots of protein.

    Protein? Interesting...now that biking / running season has started in earnest, I've had to bump up my carbs significantly (when I start craving sugar, I know I'm undereating carbs). I've kept my protein steady at 1 g / lb of LBM.

    Probably not so generally interesting. I have gastroparesis (aka lazy stomach) and managing intake is a balancing act. It's safer (digestively) for me to stay closer to 1g protein/kg BW. Yesterday I had 1g protein/lb of LBM, which is "lots" for me.

  • landfish
    landfish Posts: 255 Member
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    chouflour wrote: »
    The stars have finally aligned, and I started bike commuting this week. I biked on Tuesday and felt good as long as I kept eating and eating. Today (Wednesday) I drove, but am STILL ravenous. My hunger cues are screwy, so I'm not sure if this is exercise-induced hunger or hormonal (aka insatiable) hunger.

    MapMyRide (retroactive mapping, not the app) seems to think that I burned 940ish calories in 73 minutes, but I question my ability to burn 770 calories per hour. With online calculators varying from 700-1400, what do people find is reasonably accurate?

    I always use my lean body mass for calculators and if the calculations aren't based on heart rate, they are pretty pointless.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    chouflour wrote: »
    The 1 calorie per 100kg (body weight plus bike weight?) per meter could be a useful tool though - do you have a reference for it?

    It was the outcome of a long technical discussion on one of the cycling forums. Don't treat is as gospel :smile: it's just a ballparker.




  • glevinso
    glevinso Posts: 1,895 Member
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    Generally I find if I am riding at easy endurance pace I get about 100 cal for 10 minutes (600/hr).

    We can figure it out almost exactly if we use power values: an average of 166 watts for an hour will net you just about exactly 600 calories burned.

    Turns out by some odd trick humans are about 25% efficient when cycling (meaning 25% of the calories you burn end up as power to the pedals). It also happens that there are about 4 kilojoules per kilocalorie (its actually 4.18 but close enough).

    Watts are joules/second so if we know how many watts we are riding (need a power meter for this), we can be fairly close in our calorie burn estimation.

    For example - lets say we rode at 166 watts for an hour. That might be tough for a newbie cyclist but for me that is a stroll down a nice trail. (166 watts * 3600 seconds)/1000 = 600 Kilojoules

    (the divide by 1000 is to go from joules to kilojoules).

    Since we happen to be 25 % efficient and there are 4ish KJ per KCal, it is a 1 to 1 conversion to calories. Therefore 600 kilojoules expended into the pedals is almost exactly 600 kilocalories burned by the body overall
  • betuel75
    betuel75 Posts: 776 Member
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    I agree with about 100 cal for 10 minutes. I ride to work and use my Polar HRM and its about that. Also i noticed that MFP's estimate without me imputing anything is pretty close to what the HRM numbers are.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,884 Member
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    I estimate 400 calories per hour. That seems to be about right given my weight loss.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    For commute cycling, on a Brompton in London, my Garmin gives me about 300 cals per hour, or roughly 25 cals per km.

    Heart rate is a meaningless indicator in this sense, because I'm in London and the biggest influence on my heart rate is mindless cage dwellers with no spatial awareness, and ped-lemmings who insist on stepping into the road.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    I find the MFP "Bicycling, 14-16 mph, vigorous (cycling, biking, bike riding) " to be a very reasonable sounding estimate.

    MFP's "Bicycling, 16-20 mph, very fast (cycling, biking, bike riding)" seems too generous but there's a hell of a difference in effort for me in doing 16 or 20mph!

    Garmin is ridiculously low for me.
    Strava quite a bit low.
    Runkeeper a bit high.

    These are steady state rides compared to a HRM personalised with tested VO2 max and max HR settings and also compared against a power meter equipped bike.

    As a rule of thumb 650/hr is my brisk two or three hour pace. Commuting or other riding in stop/start traffic would be considerably lower.

  • ScrAgnX
    ScrAgnX Posts: 368 Member
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    I don't know how flexible you are with regards to speed/intensity, but if I stay in the aerobic zone (65-80% max heart rate; essentially able to carry on a conversation) I'm much less hungry at the end than if I'm pushing hard.

    In the lower heart rate zone I don't lose that much speed (6% slower), but gain in distance (22% longer ride before fatigue).
  • bigd66218
    bigd66218 Posts: 376 Member
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    betuel75 wrote: »
    I agree with about 100 cal for 10 minutes. I ride to work and use my Polar HRM and its about that. Also i noticed that MFP's estimate without me imputing anything is pretty close to what the HRM numbers are.

    A heart rate monitor is the way to go to get a fairly accurate number, my polar occasionally will have hiccups where it will spike my numbers to high for my heart rate. As long as the contacts are kept clean, well-placed and minimal radio interference.. your golden.
  • cokefloat1
    cokefloat1 Posts: 86 Member
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    My polar HRM measures me at about 800cals per hour keeping my heart rate towards the 80% mark. Cycling makes me ravenous too. I'm just trying to figure out how I can keep the hunger off. Big breakfast and big lunch and small dinner seems to be the best way for me.
  • PingiePingPing
    PingiePingPing Posts: 7 Member
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    I started cycling last summer and still have a hard time believing in the calorie burn. The different apps and calculators will give me (female 5'4" 142lbs) between 800-1200 calories for my rides, which are usually 2-3 hours at 20km/h average of hilly terrain. Even 800 just seems insanely high for two hours of exercise...
  • tdatsenko
    tdatsenko Posts: 155 Member
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    cokefloat1 wrote: »
    My polar HRM measures me at about 800cals per hour keeping my heart rate towards the 80% mark. Cycling makes me ravenous too. I'm just trying to figure out how I can keep the hunger off. Big breakfast and big lunch and small dinner seems to be the best way for me.

    I just drink a lot of water, especially during the ride. You'll be surprised how much less hungry you are when you're not thirsty.
  • glevinso
    glevinso Posts: 1,895 Member
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    800cal/hr is a sustained 222 watts - something that takes most people quite a bit of training to achieve.

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