how do i know how many calories i burned from working out

butterflyflower1984 wrote: »

i do these little exercises i find on google along with some other workout videos on youtube, how do i determine how many calories i burned?

Most everything will be a guesstimate. Even if you use a HR monitor, plug in your data (age, weight, height, gender) - gizmo's will report back some sort of guesstimate based on their algorithms. We all have different heart rates (or at least enough +/- from the mean) that may have the reading closer to the mean than what we might be.

It starts to get closer on machines or bikes that have a power meter to measure the effort (Watts) that, when combined with the heart rate, are able to get a closer to more accurate guesstimate that is right in the ball park.

Harvard has an excellent chart that covers three different weights, different intensities, and a lot of activities here:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities

SingingSingleTracker wrote: »

butterflyflower1984 wrote: »

i do these little exercises i find on google along with some other workout videos on youtube, how do i determine how many calories i burned?

Most everything will be a guesstimate. Even if you use a HR monitor, plug in your data (age, weight, height, gender) - gizmo's will report back some sort of guesstimate based on their algorithms. We all have different heart rates (or at least enough +/- from the mean) that may have the reading closer to the mean than what we might be.

It starts to get closer on machines or bikes that have a power meter to measure the effort (Watts) that, when combined with the heart rate, are able to get a closer to more accurate guesstimate that is right in the ball park.

Harvard has an excellent chart that covers three different weights, different intensities, and a lot of activities here:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities

^^ This.

The very first thing you need to understand is that everything everything everything is a educated (to one degree or another) guess. Even with bikes/rowing machines/etc that have power measures. These can be very accurate (assuming they are calibrated and zeroed), but they only tell part of the story. They can measure the amount of power you generated into the device and from that very accurately calculate the calories required to generate that power, but they they only take into account power generated into the device. Respiration, non-power-generating movement, etc all generate calorie burn not seen by the device.

The upshot of all this is that you can only ever really guess. Don't take calorie numbers from anywhere as gospel. This is especially true of gym treadmills and the like. First, they are rarely (never) calibrated, and second, my cynical nature says "If I make a treadmill and when you finish a 30 minute run it tells you you burned 1,000 calories while my competitor's treadmill says you only burned 600, which one are you going to feel more inclined to like?"

And this doesn't even get into the quagmire of strength training calorie burns. Too many variables to even discuss there. Again, a guess. Nothing more.

How long does that take you?


If it were me, I'd probably go with this choice: "Calisthenics, home, light/moderate effort"

Machka9 wrote: »

How long does that take you?


If it were me, I'd probably go with this choice: "Calisthenics, home, light/moderate effort"

I'd go with this