I’m confused by these exercise calculators?

knightingale9985
knightingale9985 Posts: 8 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Each one I’ve tried says something completely different about how many calories I burned while walking based on my weight, height, age, and duration of the walk.. Which one is right?

Atm I’m sticking with pacer which seems to be the least generous (except for my iPhones health app) of the walking apps I’ve tried. I figured it’s better to under estimate and not eat back calories I don’t need and if it’s wrong then I’m just losing more in the long run.. Online charts are also all over the place and never seem to agree.

Has anyone actually tested these to see which is more accurate? If the differences were minor I wouldn’t be as curious but the ranges are HUGE! Anywhere from 143 calories burned according to my iPhone, 221 according to pacer, 312 for another app, and 512 for map my walk! That’s a big gap between them..

Replies

  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,223 Member
    Unfortunately, they're all pretty much guesses. I suggest picking one and staying consistent with it for a few weeks and see how it impacts your weight gain/loss (goal is unspecified?). If it looks like that count is being too stingy or generous, start adjusting accordingly. Most users find this iterative method to be effective for various forms of exercise, not just walking.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,410 Member
    Yeah. What steveko89 said.

    It's a guess...

    There are three things to attempt to dial in: (1.) Food intake and accurate logging (2.) Your current weight trend (3.) Your calorie expenditure, both through your daily life and through exercise.

    The third one is the one that seemed to me to be the most difficult to pin down and I really only did it by....doing it. Pick a number for your exercise and stick to it long enough to see how things work out with that number. All of the calculators are a bit different and you have to work this out yourself.
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
    If you're walking use .30 x weight in lbs x distance in miles to calculate your net calorie (ie additional calories) expended. Height & age have little to do with it...it's physics mass over distance.
  • knightingale9985
    knightingale9985 Posts: 8 Member
    edited March 2019
    Thank you everyone for your insight! I’m shocked that nobody has ever really done a controlled study on these different counters especially in today’s society where weight has become a real issue and solutions are marketed the most. I know everyone is different but there should still be an average that has been decided on..

    Thank you Brian for the formula. I’ll test these out myself and try to figure it all out. According to the formula you gave me pacer is spot on with its estimates. Which kind of makes me angry about these charts they have online on these health sites which suggest I burned nearly doubly what pacer is predicting.. No wonder people struggle to lose if they are eating back calories that weren’t actually burned. I’m glad I’m a skeptic!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,163 Member
    knightingale9985 wrote: »
    Thank you everyone for your insight! I’m shocked that nobody has ever really done a controlled study on these different counters especially in today’s society where weight has become a real issue and solutions are marketed the most. I know everyone is different but there should still be an average that has been decided on..

    Thank you Brian for the formula. I’ll test these out myself and try to figure it all out. According to the formula you gave me pacer is spot on with its estimates. Which kind of makes me angry about these charts they have online on these health sites which suggest I burned nearly doubly what pacer is predicting.. No wonder people struggle to lose if they are eating back calories that weren’t actually burned. I’m glad I’m a skeptic!

    Be clear that some "calculators" are estimating gross calories for the walk (i.e., your BMR & NEAT plus the additional calories you burn because you're walking); others (like that formula from Brian, as he says) are estimating just net calories (i.e., just the additional ones from the walking, not including those you'd burn if not walking).

    They're not always explicit about it, either.

    There are a lot of studies about exercise calorie burn. There are confounding variables, different populations, etc. Human biomechanics (speaking generally) is complicated. Statistical estimating methods produce a range of values.

    Cmriverside's comment above about picking a consistent way of estimating exercise, logging carefully over a period of weeks, then adjusting based on average results: That's how to deal with statitical estimates productively, in the weight management context.

    Best wishes!

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