Figure skating

I'm currently in the maintenance phase of a long running push towards overall fitness. The fitness part, however, I am not as good at as the diet part. I'm not a big fan of exercise just for the sake of it because I get bored. Although sometimes I do crave a good run.

I was just curious, though about the differences in the way I feel after doing various activities and what this and other exercise calorie expenditure calculators say I burn doing them. Because it doesn't always seem to add up - even though I'd like it to.

When I walk/run at about 5 mph on a flat treadmill for just 30 minutes, even, I feel like I have definitely worked out. My heart rate gets up in the 130s, I'm dripping in sweat and at times I feel like I cant catch my breath when I actually run for any part of that. If I do it for an hour the calculator says I should burn around 400 calories. Which seems logical, I guess.

But I don't do it very often.

Once a week I take a 90 minute ballet class. It's very aerobic and depending on how often I go, I feel like I get a similar workout as running, even though it's stop and start during the class. And the calculator estimates similar calorie usage.

However, for the past 5 years I have been taking figure skating lessons once a week. I'm not great at it but I can do some little jumps, spins, crossovers, etc. And when I skate I generally do a few laps and stop and work on those other things. I'm moving most of the time and all of it does take effort, physically, but I'm not just speeding around all the time. And just the laps don't seem to take nearly the effort that they did when I was first starting.

So my question is this, the calorie calculator estimates a similar expenditure for "ice skating, general" as it does for running. I can feel my muscles have been worked when I'm done and I am generally ravenously hungry a short time later but i don't feel like my heart is pounding out of my chest at any point. I'm wondering how it could burn the same number of calories. Maybe it's just because it's so cold and I don't sweat as much. Maybe it all balances out - not having to work as hard to move, period, is replaced by doing more difficult things. I'm just kind of paranoid that maybe I'm not really burning as many calories as it thinks I am, because I'm in better shape than the average person selecting that entry from a diary of this sort.

It doesn't really matter. The point is the skating, not the calories, but I don't want to be eating back more calories than I actually burn.

Just curious if anyone has any thoughts.