I'm not burning that much!

300 is good! i burn anywhere from 100 to 800 calories a day. and i have stopped working out everyday.

Don't forget calories burned relates to weight, therefore heavier people will burn more doing the same amount of exercise

I depends on what you weigh. If you 130 pds you will burn a lot less than someone who weighs 300 pds if that's you in the picture you don't look like you have a lot to lose. Also there is a difference if you use HRM or MFP calories

Time. I put the time in for big burns. UCSB Alumna here; hope you have fun!!

A spinning class burns about 500 calories, then since I ride my bike to the train station and walk from train station to work, and walk some more during my lunch I can burn about 800 calories.

On weekends, I'll take a class and explore the city by foot or on a bike so that takes me well over 800 calories.

I have a desk job so I try to fit in as much as possible wherever I can.

Just wanted to add:

My weight is 119 lbs
I wear a HRM to track calories I burn for gym workouts.
Outside the gym I use MFP calorie burn data. I use the lower end to be safe (e.g. slow bike ride, leisure walking pace)
When I do my gym workout I keep my heart rate between 135 and 165.

I'm noticing as I lose that I have to spend more time in the gym to get the burns that I got at the start. I use a HRM so I know that it's more accurate than the machines and MFP. I've only lost 10 or so kilos this time, but I'm noticing already that I have to stay a little bit longer to hit my magic number... (I like 300 or 500 calories, cos I'm OCD like that)

But are these people tracking EVERYTHING? Because to burn like 800 calories I'd have to run like 8 miles everyday. Are they also putting like, say, trips to the grocery store and stuff? Or do you think they're really burning that much just working out? Why aren't they sore?

not necessarily My sister-in-law and i burn about the same calories and she is fit and runs 7 miles on the beach or 15 miles on flat surface road and i walk 2 1/2 on the tread mill we both burn about 550 calories she weights about 115 and I weigh 333 and that is all we track. My daughter is a weightlifter and when they train they burn an average of 7500 per training session twice a day ( 15,000). 5 days a week and once time on their 6th day(7500). So it really depends on your size how hard you train, what type of exercise you do , you state of fitness etc you can not compare yourself to anyone else when it comes to how many calories you burn every body's (body) is different so please don't feel like you are not doing as much as someone else

When I do an average aerobic workout I burn like you around 200-300 BUT when I want to kick it up a notch I to a full hour of something like zumba where at times I feel like my heart is about to pump right out of my chest (in a good way - not the bad I'm about to have a heart attack way ). I obviously weigh significantly more than you which is why I can burn almost 600 in an hour but I do understand what you mean I have seen some pretty thin people say they have burned 1000 calories and I just don't see how BUT they must be kicking @$$ and for many hours at a time. But to answer your basic question I don't put in anything extra like walking around the block. I strictly just add in the calories burned during exercise times...

@ NOTGODDESS - how are you determining what to adjust your exercise calories (removing the basic seditary ones)? Are you simply taking your daily count and dividing it out to figure out how much you would have burned normally or do you have a specific program you use that helps with that? I have thought of that before but didn't want to make the math more difficult for myself. I was just putting in the calories burned without making an adjustments but I figured that since your metabolism picks up for hours after exercise burning more than your normally would it would all even out in the end.

I see people's stuff with like "So-And-So burned 650 calories doing blah blah" and i'm like woah! I'm burning like 300 per day MAX! Am I the only one?

That's about what I burn on a typical day, 250-350.

There are MANY factors which effect your burn: weight, age, intensity, time and HR. Today in an easy-moderate intensity spin class I did 550 cal in 65 minutes. I am 175lbs.

If you want a higher burn you have to PUSH to get it, but yes, if you are smaller and in great cardiovascular health it may be more difficult to get a higher burn and keep your HR up.

Mix it up and keep putting forth the effort.
With an hour ish of a workout I usually do 400-700 calories. I do high intensity intervals or circuit training and really push it.

Since there are a lot of things that effect a burn, likely most people will NOT get the same burn for doing similar things. I love having a heartrate monitor so I can push myself one step further.

I burn 720 on the Cybex Arc trainer in 60 minutes, Eliptical is around 550, Treadmill around 550. I am 5'8" and weigh 122. that's what the machine is telling me after entering in my stats. MFP says slightly less. I subtract 10% for machine accuracy. I don't have a heart rate monitor to tell me otherwise. Also though, my trainer says the more your body gets used to the type of exercise your doing you won't burn as many calories so I try and switch it up. I'm also really pulling in a sweat, no easy level 1's. Hope that helps.

Using a HRM and using MFP give very different numbers too - this needs to be considered.
I recorded a 400 burn yesterday using a HRM which I stopped everytime I did.
If I used the database on here it's double that!

@Shalimarmandy - MFP puts my daily burn (TDEE) at 1640. I just took that, divided by 24, then again by 60 to get the burn/minute of 1.1. It's not exact, but it's a good guess and an easy number to subtract.

I started using the HRM that goes with my Garmin because I thought the MFP were insanely high. However, for running, they seem to be fairly accurate, with some big exceptions. I wonder if that's because you can get so specific about pace? Anyhow, I'm training for a half-marathon, so on days I do my long run, I'll log an 800-calorie burn. But most regular days, I get more like 300 to 400 calories, depending on how far/long I run.

From my experience, it seems to just be a matter of what you're doing and how long you're doing it. I also think that the MFP calculations tend to skew high, depending on the activity. For instance, it gives me an insane number of calories for my long runs and is off by 100 or 200 calories compared to my HRM.