Kidding Ourselves

You're fairly light, so your calorie burn for a 5k is going to be much different than someone who is heavier or more out of shape. My last 5k had me around 450 calories and it took me forever to finish because I'm slow.

Sure, some people are logging higher calorie burns than they should. Maybe they don't know better and maybe they are lying to themselves. Or maybe they need to see that huge number to keep themselves motivated to try. If they aren't losing weight they'll eventually ask for help and get corrected or they'll realize they aren't being honest.

This is why any time somebody posts "I'm eating 1300-1400 calories per day and gaining!" I ask if s/he is eating or netting that amount. Usually the person thinks s/he's netting that number of calories, based on a really high exercise calorie number. I'm not one to claim that MFP calorie estimates are always high (I always ate my MFP exercise calories and did fine) but I do think that anybody logging exercise needs to check a few different calorie calculators to see if they are reasonable.

This could go one of three ways:
- The person is indeed overestimating their calories (I've seen 1500 calories for 90 minutes of zumba).
- The person is heavy (I can burn 1000 calories if I were crazy enough to do 80 minutes of reasonably fast high incline walking).
- The person is overtraining or running the distance to train for a marathon or a half.

On some days (like on hikes) I do have burns that are quite high, and I very often eat them back. The way I know I'm not overestimating is by the consistency of my weight loss.

annaskiski wrote: »

I'm baffled by some of these posts as well.

If it was that easy to burn 1000 calories, I'd be eating cheesecake 3 times/day

10k = 1,000 calories for me and takes about an hour. This is pretty darn easy to do 6 times a week actually. Long runs on the weekend typically burn 2000 - 2500 calories.

I love cheesecake.

ETA: Without eating all these extra calories back I'd run out of the energy to do these workouts quickly. Food = fuel. Apply as necessary.

fattothinmum wrote: »

I keep reading posts from people who've burned up to 1000+ calories a day from cardio, and fairly light exercise. Now I know I only burn around 300 calories for running 5K, so that means these people must be running or equivalent to 15-20K a day, or 10 miles plus, but often they day things like 'hour of housework, or 2 hours of walking at moderate pace, etc etc.

If people eat back those type of calorie burn estimates, I suspect they'd have trouble losing weight, unless of course, my Apple Watch and treadmill seriously underestimates.

Those might be your numbers, if you weigh 145 lbs. For me, 1000 calories would be about 8.5-8.75 miles. And that is easily done 5x a week.

And yes, your apple watch is wrong.

Also, nunya bidness. Just do you and let other people worry about their calorie burn. We can poke them when they start complaining about not losing.

fattothinmum wrote: »

I keep reading posts from people who've burned up to 1000+ calories a day from cardio, and fairly light exercise. Now I know I only burn around 300 calories for running 5K, so that means these people must be running or equivalent to 15-20K a day, or 10 miles plus, but often they day things like 'hour of housework, or 2 hours of walking at moderate pace, etc etc.

If people eat back those type of calorie burn estimates, I suspect they'd have trouble losing weight, unless of course, my Apple Watch and treadmill seriously underestimates. Which would be nice.

Just watch out for overestimations if you eat back all the time.

I think people do overestimate. I have burns of 2000 calories because I have been marathon training. For instance 1,762 calories for 189 minutes of running which I picked a slower pace up to 2700 calories for nearly 5 hours of running. However I eat most of it back, because you are hungry!!! I think if people log 1500 calories for 90 minutes of zumba and then eat it back they wont lose weight. I would burn 2000 calories running for over 4 hours. However, I have actually put on a few pounds in the last few weeks because my appetite is huge and I had cut back some of the mileage, so I might have been massively overestimating.

It could be better for certain. Don't know that it is always on the high side, but 1,000 calorie burn is a lot for most people.

Per MFP, which only has one entry for spinning, a person my weight doing 45 minutes burns a little under 400 calories. There isn't any adjustment for intensity.

This other site has at least two listings - moderate and vigorous. Guessing my 45 minute class is about 25 minutes moderate and 20 minutes vigorous since the instructor today alternates working songs with recovery songs. Gives me 500 calories.

https://healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

The one hour class on Saturday is a lot more challenging...longer, harder, and less recovery. Probably more like 45 minutes vigorous and 15 moderate at a guess. We go to anaerobic thresh hold multiple times and I've been getting post-workout chills. That one would be more like 600 calories. MFP gives more like 500 for that.

For 1,000 I would need a longer class because I don't know if I could do harder...have to have some recovery.

If I really cared though I could get a heart rate monitor to get closer...even that is more for steady state.

It's really dependent on your own fitness level, weight, and how much effort it takes for you to complete the same task. For instance, I used to burn 1000 calories every morning walking (I walked by calorie count, not by distance or time) around 4-4.5 miles. I'd walk about 4mph, almost at a slow run, but I weighed 280-305 at the time and my heart rate would stay between 150-160 most of the time. Is that an over estimation? Maybe a little, but not more than a couple hundred calories at most. The same 4 mile walk today with the same HR monitor, same app, and I burn only around 600 calories. The difference? I weigh now 192, and my HR never gets over 115 or so doing the same speeds.

On a normal daily workout I burn about 500 calories on my Bowflex M5. It's a cross between a stair climber and an elliptical. I have it dialed up to level 14 presently on a steady state setting (max is 15 on resistance) and it is the only thing now that I can sustain a 150+ HR while exercising. So I spend about 30-35 minutes a day on it to burn that 500 calories. Then, directly after that, while my HR is still elevated (with very little rest) I move into HIIT body weight training. My HR drops to an average of about 120ish give or take 5bpm during the next 30 minutes, and I generally only burn 250-300 calories. That gives me my 800 calorie a day burn six days a week.

Here's the catch though, even though I figure that those calorie estimates are pretty close (because they are calculated on the App/HR strap I wear), I always assume they are inflated by 20-30% just to be safe. So I either try not to eat back any of those calories, or I try to only eat back a small portion of what's left (taking into account a 20-30% inflation). I've done that now for over six months and steadily lost weight without any issues. Granted, it is harder for me to lose any now since I'm pretty much at my goal and I'm eating closer to maintenance every day, but I guess my point is this. A lot of people do over-estimate their calories, and the majority of the time the device they are using might be to blame, but it's not impossible for someone to burn 1000 calories doing some sort of cardio.

If you're running a 5k and your basing your calculations on heart rate with a good strap and a decent app then my guess is that your HR isn't getting into the anaerobic level and are simply in better shape than other people. Just my .02, I'm no expert. I simply believe it is possible to burn that much because I've done it, and in as much as an hour at times when I was much heavier and way more out of shape.

The only time i can really be sure about calorie burns is with steady state cardio and a chest strap HRM. All others like swimming, stationary row machine at the gym, etc are ones i dont even include as exercise as im not really certain, though i do have a better idea than some of the extravagant amounts some people think they are burning. The chest strap HRM are really accurate for steady state cardio though. If i weight 10 pounds more than where i want to be my calorie burn for that 1 hour 45 minute mountain bike ride yields me about a 1k calories burned. Once ive dropped about 10 pounds of true body mass weight my calorie burn for that same mountain bike ride/duration yields me low 800s calorie burns. There is a pretty big difference in calorie burns between a 10 pounds swing in body mass weight. I can only imagine the amount of calorie burn difference between 20-40 pounds true body mass difference.

The easy way to not kid yourself: Don't eat back your calories. I know exactly what my intake goal is every day. I eat that much and no more. Some days I'm active, some days not. I still lose either way.

Everything you do involving calorie counting is inexact. If you want to lose, you're better off being inexact by NOT eating than inexact by eating.

MFP is great for estimating intake. It's truly terrible at estimating calories burnt.

I'm conflicted about the OP's post, but I will say this: I haven't seen such great success in fat loss since I upped my calorie intake (1500 to 1700) and STOPPED eating back my exercise calories. It's probably not for everyone (nothing really is, other than oxygen and sweet love making), but it's worked out really well for me. I do have people on my friend list who list 1,200 calories for 45 minutes of elliptical and stuff like that. I can only assume that, after little progress is made, they'll do the healthy thing and make minor adjustments until something does create success.