Calories burnt - which is the best method of calculating?

stephiehampshire
stephiehampshire Posts: 160
edited September 28 in Fitness and Exercise
Hiya,

I guess the answer is obvious but I wanted to check,

I cycle to work every day and its between 9-10 miles each way depending on the route,

The route is not on flat ground there are hills to climb and some of it is against the wind along the seafront,

Today I put my time and speed on MFP and it came out as burning 395 calories
I also use a GPS tracker and exercise pal on my BB, that said I had done 309 calories
I also use a heart rate monitor, this said I had burnt 589 calories, it said I was in the fat burning zone for 55minutes

I guess the most accurate is my heart rate monitor as it is the one thing that monitors how hard I am working, but it is such a drastic difference I wanted to run it by you guys first!

Today was an extra hard day as it is incredably windy and I was against the wind uphill most of the way in

Thanks Guys

Replies

  • emmaphillips
    emmaphillips Posts: 43
    personally i would trust your HRM, like u say its the only 1 that actually marks how hard u worked (with the wind, hills etc) so even though it seems a lot higher than mfp, mfp will only be calculating it on a flat surface im guessing :)

    x
  • maemiller
    maemiller Posts: 439 Member
    I was told by my trainer that it would be your HRM. I have a Forerunner that i use for running and its usually 200-300 calories off from my HRM. those GPS only goes by your settings(height, wgt, age) and how fast youre going, whereas the HRM is calculating not only your stats, but your actual heart rate in the fat burning and fitness zones, if that makes sense
  • stephiehampshire
    stephiehampshire Posts: 160
    thanks guy I thought as much but because of the big difference I didnt want to just assume and take those extra 200 calories burnt for granted if that makes sense lol

    Going for my normal walk at lunch time today, I normally estimate burning around 180 calories as we do about 2.2 miles, be interesting to do it with the HRM,

    I only found my HRM this morning had to update the stats on it, depressing enough last time I used it I was 5lb lighter! I will get there again!
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