Do you think this is a good way to estimate calories burned on a cardio machine?

numinousnymph
numinousnymph Posts: 249 Member
edited November 25 in Fitness and Exercise
So, I had a Polar FT4 heart rate monitor and it was working great. The battery has died and I have not been able to get a new one and probably won't for a few more weeks. I know that machines are extremely inaccurate in terms of showing you calorie burn. I only use machines that let you enter your weight and age so I can at least get a bit of a closer estimation. On top of that, though, I will enter my weight as 20 lbs less than I really am, and then halve the calorie burn it shows that I end up with. Does that sound like an okay strategy? Do you think I'm underestimating or overestimating? With that method, it usually ends up with ~250 calorie burn for an hour of moderate cardio with bursts of high intensity (heart rate gets to around 115 at the easiest and low 170s at the highest). I am age 25, 5' 4" and somewhere around 125 - 130 lbs (I have not been able to weigh myself for over a month [scale broke and can't afford a new one right now] but I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere in that range). Any insight would help!

Replies

  • AJ_G
    AJ_G Posts: 4,158 Member
    The way you're doing it is super conservative, I'm sure you're at least burning 150% of the calories that you end up entering into MFP, but being conservative isn't a bad thing if you're losing weight. As long as you're not losing weight too fast (more than 1% of your body weight per week), then you're fine.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    I'm 5'4" and between 125-130...I'm pretty sure we'd burn a bit more than 250 in an hour. But like AJ said, just gauge it by how fast you are losing.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Think it's a dreadful way to estimate!
    You use a device to estimate calories and then put in deliberately wrong information (your weight) and then randomly halve a flawed estimate.

    You would get a better idea of your calorie burn potential by seeing how far you can run or walk for a length of time. Both very standard activities which are easy to estimate.
  • Inkratlet
    Inkratlet Posts: 613 Member
    You presumably have all your previous HRM data so you could base an estimate off your previous 1hr moderate cardio numbers.
  • Meganthedogmom
    Meganthedogmom Posts: 1,639 Member
    I just take whatever calorie burn it gives me and multiply by .75 (or if you want to log half, multiply by .5) and log that. So far so good.
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    Inkratlet wrote: »
    You presumably have all your previous HRM data so you could base an estimate off your previous 1hr moderate cardio numbers.

    That's what I'm thinking. Surely you have a typical workout that you do for an hour and so you know about what your HRM gave you as a burn. Take 10 of those entries, take the average, and use that as your estimated burn.
This discussion has been closed.

Categories