How acurate is the treadmill??

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CorrieV1976
CorrieV1976 Posts: 320 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
A friend of mine posed a good question. I dont have an HRM so the only calories burned I can go by is what the treadmill at the gym tells me.
She was saying that she did 26 minutes and only burned 127 calories, today I did 45 minutes and burned 312.6 (I always round up lol..313)
I do interval training and walk 3.4- 3.8 mph incline is usually between 3 and 8 , I'm working on running but havent made it there yet, I get a pretty good sweat on, just wondering , how accurate it really is.....With 5 kids , buying a HRM, is not in the forseeable future

Any input would be appreciated!! :)

Keep up the great work!!! You are all an inspiration and keep me grounded enough to continue to fight for this, even on days I mess up!!

Replies

  • mallory3411
    mallory3411 Posts: 839 Member
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    Use an exercise calorie counter (on here or on another site, just google it). I find the counts at the gym are not very accurate. The amount of calories you burn is based on many factors including your size.

    Is the machine your using one where you have to input your age, weight, gender etc before you begin? If not it most likely is not a very good estimate on the calories burned.
  • CorrieV1976
    CorrieV1976 Posts: 320 Member
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    It does have me enter age, weight and I enter honestly!
    and whenever I enter it on here the estimated calories burned is always higher than what the treadmill says, so I change it to what the treadmill says....

    and sorry I can't seem to spell today...accurate* pet peeve of mine I have to fix it....
  • steelersfamily6
    steelersfamily6 Posts: 138 Member
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    Hi everyone! I am the one that brought this up bc yesterday was my first day at the gym and I used the treadmill. It had me enter in my age and what I wanted for a program. I entered in weight loss so it had me at an incline of 0 at first and then I think it went up to 9 at one point. It said I walked for 1.5 miles and that I burned 137 calories which just seemed so odd to me bc when I entered it on here it was so much more. I was just curious bc you would think that these machines are accurate and they are nice expensive machines.
  • mgodde
    mgodde Posts: 10
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    I too have found that there is a discrepancy in treadmill ond other gym equipment accuracy. Time is merely one part of the equation. Speed, incline or resistance also greatly affect the total number of calories burned in additin to age and weight. What I have discovered is that the machines at my gym seem to lean towards weighting speed more than incline or resistance. That said, I hlavechosen to split the difference between the gym readout and the calories on MFP. Previously I was using only the gym readout and I was not losing weight. Now that I have changed how I input burned calories I am making head way.

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