My calories burned? Calorie tracker?

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saraonly9913
saraonly9913 Posts: 469 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
This has been on my mind for quite some time but I have to ask finally.

I am so stuck. I have no clue how many calories I'm burning. Can you help? I know it will be an estimate but I'll take a close estimate over total confusion.

Female. 5'4". 150 pounds.

1) Treadmill: Speed 3.1, Incline 9, Time 100 minutes.

2) Les Mills RPM (spin). Website says up to 675 but that sounds like too much.

3) Can anyone recommend a wrist calorie counter, preferably stand alone, fairly accurate, that does not need an app. I want to just look at my wrist and see calories burned. Looking for something that's easy to use.

Thank you in advance for your input.

Replies

  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Look at the accuracy specification, what is the maximum error allowed by each of the devices you're looking at?
  • raygunn_viola
    raygunn_viola Posts: 88 Member
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    I go pretty hard at spin and I usually average about 450 calories burned...5'6 170.
    I have a polar chest strap that I'm really really happy with. I know you said a wrist one but the chest straps are way more accurate
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    The only accurate way to determine calories burned on a bike is with a power meter. Chest strap can be off by up to 300%.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,732 Member
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    Look at how many calories you're logging as eaten. Using a trending weight app look at your weight change over time. Translate that into approximately 3500 Cal per lb of weight change. Now you know how many calories you burned over the same time span...as closely as you'll ever know!!!!

    Look at exrx.net or other online calculator sources including mfp for a non personal estimate.
  • saraonly9913
    saraonly9913 Posts: 469 Member
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    saraonly9913 wrote: »
    This has been on my mind for quite some time but I have to ask finally.

    I am so stuck. I have no clue how many calories I'm burning. Can you help? I know it will be an estimate but I'll take a close estimate over total confusion.

    Female. 5'4". 150 pounds.

    1) Treadmill: Speed 3.1, Incline 9, Time 100 minutes.

    2) Les Mills RPM (spin). Website says up to 675 but that sounds like too much.

    3) Can anyone recommend a wrist calorie counter, preferably stand alone, fairly accurate, that does not need an app. I want to just look at my wrist and see calories burned. Looking for something that's easy to use.

    Thank you in advance for your input.

    I should have added that my treadmill does not give me calories burned. Yeah. Go figure.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    saraonly9913 wrote: »

    2) Les Mills RPM (spin). Website says up to 675 but that sounds like too much.

    Note the weasel words "up to" - which then includes an awful lot of alternative and smaller numbers.
    Without knowing your cycling ability (preferably in terms of watts) whether that is attainable for you isn't possible to give an anything but a maybe but I very much doubt it. Not just as that is a very high number for (I'm assuming from your profile name) a female rider the interval nature of spinning plus warm up and cooldown also drags down the average significantly. It may well be a gross cal estimate too.

    I could say that an expert cyclist can burn "up to" 1600 cals in an hour but that gives zero help to mere mortals.
    This mere mortal can burn over 700 net cals but I know a very good female cyclist who would top out at about 650 for an hour of near maximal constant steady state (hence my "doubt it" - if you are that good you tend to know all about it).
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,732 Member
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    Realistically, the best pre-estimates we currently have available to us (and which are used by MFP and the various devices) are based on this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent

    You can find a lot of values and additional explanations here: https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home

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