calorie burn by exercise

Does really my exercise quite burns a lot of calories? Example i do a 30 minute biking then i burn 300 around something i dont break sweat so much but i feel that my heart beat raising up does really i burn those 300 cals something? Thanks
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Replies

  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    where are you getting 300 from? the bike or MFP?
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    Neither how much you sweat nor your heart rate are good indicators of calorie burn.
  • ferd_ttp5
    ferd_ttp5 Posts: 246 Member
    where are you getting 300 from? the bike or MFP?
    By tracking the minute of my exercising

  • ferd_ttp5
    ferd_ttp5 Posts: 246 Member
    Neither how much you sweat nor your heart rate are good indicators of calorie burn.

    So whats the best to do to calculate and track totally burned calories in exercising? Any advices or help? Thanks
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    ferd_ttp5 wrote: »
    where are you getting 300 from? the bike or MFP?
    By tracking the minute of my exercising

    i dont follow?
  • SkinnyGirlCarrie
    SkinnyGirlCarrie Posts: 259 Member
    you could get a Heart Rate Monitor if you're doing steady state cardio like riding a stationary bike. still an estimate but better than whatever the machine output would be or what MFP is telling you.

    i like the polar H7 bluetooth heart rate monitor and i pair it with the iCardio app (i like this app because you can do a custom vo2 max, which is supposedly more accurate)
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    ferd_ttp5 wrote: »
    Neither how much you sweat nor your heart rate are good indicators of calorie burn.

    So whats the best to do to calculate and track totally burned calories in exercising? Any advices or help? Thanks

    On a bicycle, the best you're going to get outside of a lab is a power meter. Of course those are expensive, but a GPS unit that uses speed, distance, and elevation gain to calculate calories can produce a good approximation.
  • jjpptt2
    jjpptt2 Posts: 5,650 Member
    ferd_ttp5 wrote: »
    Neither how much you sweat nor your heart rate are good indicators of calorie burn.

    So whats the best to do to calculate and track totally burned calories in exercising? Any advices or help? Thanks

    There isn't really a "best" way.

    You're on MFP... MFP can estimate calories burned. Why not start with that?
  • eagle37
    eagle37 Posts: 5 Member
    edited January 2017
    so first of all do you enter your info before you start your workout? weight, age, time, etc... if you do, the machine will give you a better calculation of the amount of calories that you burned. I lot of people just jump on to the machine and do a "Quick Start" that won't give you an accurate number.
    you can also use this formula to calculate your total calories burned.

    this is for MEN
    ((Age x 0.2017)-(weight x 0.09036) + ( Heart Rate x 0.6309)-55.0969)) x Time/4.184

    this one is for Female
    ((Age x 0.074)-(weight x 0.05741)+(Heart Rate x 0.4472)-20.4022) x Time/4.184
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    you could get a Heart Rate Monitor if you're doing steady state cardio like riding a stationary bike. still an estimate but better than whatever the machine output would be or what MFP is telling you.
    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    There isn't really a "best" way.

    The best and most accurate way to measure calories on a bike - by far - is with a power meter. A heart rate monitor is a very distant second or maybe third option.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    ferd_ttp5 wrote: »
    where are you getting 300 from? the bike or MFP?
    By tracking the minute of my exercising

    Use more words!
    Explain precisely what you are doing and how you are coming by your calorie estimate.

    300cal for 30 mins is a comfortable pace for me indoors or outdoors but may not be for you, remember no-one on here knows anything about you or what your exercise actually is.
  • Moonblood1808
    Moonblood1808 Posts: 2 Member
    Hi hun, how many calories you burn greatly depends on how much effort you put in. The harder you work the higher your EPOC, which stands for exercise-post-oxygen-consumption. It's also more commonly known as "oxygen debt" or "afterburn". Basically if you're cruising away on your bike at an easy pace with little to no sweat, then it will take your body less time to recover after the exercise has seized and thus less calories will be expended afterwards. If for example you want to cover 10km in 15min you will have to put in a lot more effort than if you were trying to cover the same 10km in 30min, right? For higher intensity activities EPOC is increased and usually lasts longer than in low to moderate intensity exercise. However if you cycle for say an hour or two with an easy to moderate pace you likely accumulate a higher oxygen debt during the exercise. But recovery afterwards will still take less time and hence calories burned decrease. It's essentially to do with your effort to duration ratio and sweating also implies an increase in body temperature which really is wanted during exercise if you're looking to burn more calories. So I doubt you'll burn 300kcal in 30min unless you're breaking that sweat and you're trying to cover a greater distance in the same time. Try that and you will burn more. But how many calories you burn also depends on the size of your body. If you're of a larger frame you will burn more than when you're a smaller frame. Gosh, long post. I'm sorry. But I hope this gives you an idea.
  • fiddletime
    fiddletime Posts: 1,868 Member
    I bike and go at a speed and resistance that make me drenched with sweat. I look at what MFP gives me and subtract a third. That's based on my polar h7 heart rate monitor. My 31 min is ten miles on resistance 18-20. I input 200 calories to mfp.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,803 Member
    Effort/intensity matter, but size matters, too.

    Fat but reasonably fit me used to burn 350 calories or so, occasionally over 400, in my twice weekly 45-minute spin classes, according to my heart rate monitor. Sadly, thin me burns only around 280 to maybe a bit over 300. Unfair, really. ;) (I did, and do, push myself to work very hard, and I sweat like crazy.)

    (For comparison, that's 183 pound me vs. 120-some pound me).

    The same kinds of ratios apply to other activities (rowing, biking, etc.) before & after weight loss.

  • ferd_ttp5
    ferd_ttp5 Posts: 246 Member
    Hi hun, how many calories you burn greatly depends on how much effort you put in. The harder you work the higher your EPOC, which stands for exercise-post-oxygen-consumption. It's also more commonly known as "oxygen debt" or "afterburn". Basically if you're cruising away on your bike at an easy pace with little to no sweat, then it will take your body less time to recover after the exercise has seized and thus less calories will be expended afterwards. If for example you want to cover 10km in 15min you will have to put in a lot more effort than if you were trying to cover the same 10km in 30min, right? For higher intensity activities EPOC is increased and usually lasts longer than in low to moderate intensity exercise. However if you cycle for say an hour or two with an easy to moderate pace you likely accumulate a higher oxygen debt during the exercise. But recovery afterwards will still take less time and hence calories burned decrease. It's essentially to do with your effort to duration ratio and sweating also implies an increase in body temperature which really is wanted during exercise if you're looking to burn more calories. So I doubt you'll burn 300kcal in 30min unless you're breaking that sweat and you're trying to cover a greater distance in the same time. Try that and you will burn more. But how many calories you burn also depends on the size of your body. If you're of a larger frame you will burn more than when you're a smaller frame. Gosh, long post. I'm sorry. But I hope this gives you an idea.
    Hi hun, how many calories you burn greatly depends on how much effort you put in. The harder you work the higher your EPOC, which stands for exercise-post-oxygen-consumption. It's also more commonly known as "oxygen debt" or "afterburn". Basically if you're cruising away on your bike at an easy pace with little to no sweat, then it will take your body less time to recover after the exercise has seized and thus less calories will be expended afterwards. If for example you want to cover 10km in 15min you will have to put in a lot more effort than if you were trying to cover the same 10km in 30min, right? For higher intensity activities EPOC is increased and usually lasts longer than in low to moderate intensity exercise. However if you cycle for say an hour or two with an easy to moderate pace you likely accumulate a higher oxygen debt during the exercise. But recovery afterwards will still take less time and hence calories burned decrease. It's essentially to do with your effort to duration ratio and sweating also implies an increase in body temperature which really is wanted during exercise if you're looking to burn more calories. So I doubt you'll burn 300kcal in 30min unless you're breaking that sweat and you're trying to cover a greater distance in the same time. Try that and you will burn more. But how many calories you burn also depends on the size of your body. If you're of a larger frame you will burn more than when you're a smaller frame. Gosh, long post. I'm sorry. But I hope this gives you an idea.

    Thanks this far the most good comment i ever receive :smile: really appreciate so much thanks
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    fiddletime wrote: »
    I bike and go at a speed and resistance that make me drenched with sweat. I look at what MFP gives me and subtract a third. That's based on my polar h7 heart rate monitor. My 31 min is ten miles on resistance 18-20. I input 200 calories to mfp.

    If you're inside, I'm not sure it is possible not to be drenched in sweat. Outside, I'm rarely drenched in sweat even in the heat of summer.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,803 Member
    fiddletime wrote: »
    I bike and go at a speed and resistance that make me drenched with sweat. I look at what MFP gives me and subtract a third. That's based on my polar h7 heart rate monitor. My 31 min is ten miles on resistance 18-20. I input 200 calories to mfp.

    If you're inside, I'm not sure it is possible not to be drenched in sweat. Outside, I'm rarely drenched in sweat even in the heat of summer.

    Sweating is very individual. Furthermore, perceived sweating outdoors is very climate-dependent. Possibly you live in a dry climate?

    I row (on water, in summer), with a friend, call her J, who doesn't sweat. So, I'm out there in the same boat (literally) with her, sweating like I was melting, and she's not sweating. She's working hard - she's stroke, I'm bow, I can see her.

    J's told me that very occasionally, when she was doing structured training for a marathon, she did some training runs in 90+ degree F weather, and did sweat a bit under conditions like that. But she rarely, rarely sweats. I, on the other hand (at a similar size, fitness level, etc.) sweat buckets at anything over about 65 degrees when I work out, indoors or out.

    It tends to be humid here when warm - 70-80% isn't that unusual. So, if you sweat, it tends to stay on your body.

    When I've cycled in Tucson, AZ, US - very dry area - I don't perceive sweat. I also didn't perceive sweat when I was working in a plastics plant near Reno, NV (400ish degree plastic melting machines, out in the desert, 95 degrees and up outside). But sweat's there - I still dehydrate . . . quickly.

    So, the folks above who said sweating isn't a good guide to exertion? I believe that. And that's one of the reasons why sweat's not a good guide to how hard you're working. At the same exertion, I would sweat buckets and my friend J wouldn't sweat visibly at all.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    @AnnPT77 - Bikes are a lot faster than runners and probably rowers too. On a hot summer day, when the air is still and sweltering, we enjoy a 20 mph breeze as long as we're moving. We hit a red light, lose our cooling breeze, break a sweat, and then feel better once we start moving again.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,803 Member
    edited February 2017
    @AnnPT77 - Bikes are a lot faster than runners and probably rowers too. On a hot summer day, when the air is still and sweltering, we enjoy a 20 mph breeze as long as we're moving. We hit a red light, lose our cooling breeze, break a sweat, and then feel better once we start moving again.

    I also bike. I sweat. Less obvious when moving, but still happening if it's warm. Again, don't know where others live, but it's humid here when it's warm. True that it's more sweat on stationary bikes than real bikes. But we're moving off topic.

    The point of the rowing story - relevant, I think, to the OP, and used because it involves two similar people doing the exact same thing in the same conditions at around the same intensity level - was that whether one breaks a sweat or not when doing "X" is not a good guide to whether calorie burn is happening. There are many factors: Individual (genetic?), climate, and - as you point out "self induced breeze". ;)

    (BTW: Yes, bikes are faster than rowers. A 4:30 1K would be quite fast on water, for a masters woman in a single. One does get a self-generated breeze effect, such that it feels like more sweat pops out when you stop.)
  • fiddletime
    fiddletime Posts: 1,868 Member
    Stationary indoor bike. I'm 62 and am seldom hot. I never sweat, unless I reach that "sweet spot" in exercising when the pores just open up and I'm panting and hot and sweaty. To my body, that's a good workout. This is an interesting topic, even though it's off topic! Even when I was younger and jogging in very cold weather, I still had that point at which my body warmed up. Maybe there isn't any relevance here, but it's my "feel good" point. Any less and the workout is incomplete (to me).