Calories burned accuracy - HELP!

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  • skyeashlee
    skyeashlee Posts: 108 Member
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    sijomial wrote: »
    My elliptical said 650 cals burned doing 30mins (highest incline).

    For an hour, yes very possible. For 30 minutes I would be asking which year you won the Tour de France.

    steroids?
  • skyeashlee
    skyeashlee Posts: 108 Member
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    MeanderingMammal wrote: »
    skyeashlee wrote: »
    Thanks for the replies. Through obvious change of lifestyle - eating better and counting calories plus using my elliptical trainer religiously, I managed to lose 30kg....it took alot of commitment and lonnng sessions on the elliptical , so I feel pretty disheartened by the potential false info given from it...

    So 1200 cals in an hour is unrealistic. For me that would be 2 hours of running, so covering about 13 miles. fwiw sweat isn't an indicator of calorie expenditure, merely temperature and if you're indoors then that's going to compound that. I'll be saturated after an hour on a turbo trainer, but pretty comfortable putting in the same effort out in the real.

    Notwithstanding that, you've lost, which is the main thing. As your elliptihell is overestimating then that would suggest that you've got some error elsewhere that's compensating for that. Of course you haven't been explicit about whether you've been eating those calories back or not?
    Any ideas on how I can experiment with the two to work out which is more true???

    What is truth anyway?
    ericGold15 wrote: »
    Skyeashlee,
    Before I answer your question, I want to say that I don't understand your angst: you are getting the results you want.

    To answer your question:
    If you can do an exercise session on a flight of stairs, it would be easy to check the FitBit.
    Go up and up, or up and down for 10 minutes or so. Check you heart rate on the FitBit and manually when you finish the exercise

    Measure the total height up in meters (height of one stair * number of stairs)
    Multiply Height_up*9.8*Your_Weight_in_Kg = Joules of work
    Multiply JoulesofWork * 5 (an estimate of body efficiency) = BodyWork
    Divide BodyWork by 4184 = kCals expended

    Compare this number to what the FitBit says. If both the energy calc and the heart rate numbers are close then believe the FitBit in the future.

    Congrats on losing 30 Kg!

    Thank you so much !! :)
  • Working2BLean
    Working2BLean Posts: 386 Member
    edited December 2015
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    It is terribly terribly wrong!!!!

    I have a VivoSmart watch I used this morning that ports straight into MFP.

    I rode for 67 minutes at 18.3 mph.

    VivoSmart with HRM gave me 568 calorie burn it sent straight to MFP

    My Garnin Edge 500 on the bike that uses the speed cadence and HRM was turned on for comparison. It gave me 608 calories

    MFP Map My Ride was on using the same sensors and it gave me a whopping 1628 calories burnt

    That is so wrong I would be gaining weight eating my calories back

    Definitely do not blindly believe MFP calorie burn info

    It is horribly wrong.

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    edited December 2015
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    skyeashlee wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    My elliptical said 650 cals burned doing 30mins (highest incline).

    For an hour, yes very possible. For 30 minutes I would be asking which year you won the Tour de France.

    steroids?
    @skyeashlee
    No. Nothing to do with PEDs.

    Tour de France riders are genetically gifted freaks who have trained exceptionally hard for many years.
    1300 / hour would equate to being one of a very few elite athletes.

    My VO2 max ("fitness") would be rated excellent for a man in their late 30's but 829 cals is the most I've seen in an hour (measured with a power meter, 894 with a HRM).
    Hence my disbelief at your machine's estimate of 650 in 30 minutes.

    There's quite a few ways to calibrate yourself to get a ballpark figure of what you can realistically achieve with your current fitness level.
  • alyssagb1
    alyssagb1 Posts: 353 Member
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    ValerieMartini2Olives wrote: »
    Do you honestly think you were burning 20 calories a minute on an elliptical?
    That would be awesome. Just saying lol

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