Calories burned on Elliptical with HRM

bump bc I'd like to know too

I've noticed that a lot of people are saying that if you halve the amount of cals burned during an elliptical training session, that is roughly how much you have actually burned because the machine is wrong, but what about machines that actually read your heart rate because they have those handles with the sensor attached? Surely if I'm putting in my age and weight and it's reading my heart rate throughout the session, the cals burned are accurate?

Just wondering...

as far as i know, the only HRM's that one be accurate are the ones that you wear around your chest. I was on an elliptical today and even though the machine said i burned 50 calories, my chest HRM said i was closer to 100.

I've worn my HRM at the gym to test the accuracy of the machines. They were very close. The elliptical was a bit off for me, I burned about 40 calories less than the machine said, but on the treadmill I burned just over 30 more than the machine said so it pretty much balances out. I take what the machine says at the gym not what MFP says.

I wore my HRM doing Wii Step and it was dead on!

The HRM's on the machines I have found to be quite useless, sorry

A good HRM is the best way to count calories burned. My polar HRM sincs with the gym machine I'm on and it still gives me a different reading on calories burned. The gym machines dont take into account if you have allready warmed up, (15 min) and although you put your weight in and it reads your heart, the HRM asks for sex and height as well when you set it up, so it's more accurate. And even though the HRM is more accurate, it does'nt mean it's perfect either. It does'nt take your BMR into account. So I subtract 67 cal per hour to get a more realistic reading.

Here's an interesting post from another thread. It's long, but it's very useful.

This is long because of extra explanation, the actual method is simple, but please read and understand too. This can get you over the dreaded plateau effect too.

So many different methods of setting up goal calories.
MFP suggestions, which may not always be the safest or smartest. (ie net calories below your BMR)
Bringing in outside calculations and just manually adjusting goals.
Eating back exercise calories, or some, or none.
Selecting activity level.
Another method.

Why not just tell MFP the weight you want to end up at, select the activity level you are really at, select weight loss goal of maintenance or no loss, and just eat at the recommended, and don't enter exercise calories?

You would be eating at the level for the person you want to be. Isn't that what you will do eventually?

Because then there would be no tracking available that would show current level and how much to go, or how much lost, ect.

Can you manually adjust the goal calories to accomplish the same thing?

You bet.

Couple of interesting points, in case not known.
BMR, why so many recommend not eating below it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate
energy in this state is sufficient only for the functioning of the vital organs, the heart, lungs, nervous system, kidneys, liver, intestine, sex organs, muscles, and skin.
If you provide less than BMR in net calories, your body can NOT get this from itself, it will slow it down to require less.

And considering a healthy BMR probably burns more calories than your exercise, perhaps your exercise and normal daily activity, do you really want it slower?

The Harris calculation (gender, age, weight, height) for BMR is pretty accurate for those already in the healthy average range - meaning when you get to goal weight. When you are outside of it, it loses accuracy.
The Katch calculation (weight, bodyfat %) for BMR is more accurate during all times, and doesn't need exact BF% to be within 50 calories of BMR.

So the MFP BMR calc is probably as accurate as you need it - when you are at your goal weight. But probably not right now.

The activity level decision is 4 broad categories which can make it difficult to get right.
But using sedentary and entering all exercise calories could be very off too.
Having a big amount of calories on some days to make up is difficult to eat.

So here is a much simplier method.
1. Calculate your BMR for the weight you want to be.
2. Calculate your activity level with better accuracy and include exercise in that estimate, spread the extra exercise calories across the week, no big surprises each day.
3. Arrive at maintenance calories for the person you will be.
4. Set MFP Goal calories to that level (you can disregard all weight loss goals, ect MFP suggests).
5. Don't worry about entering exercise calories, just type and time for tracking if desired, zero out calories.

1. Use this site for calculating BMR for your goal weight.
http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html

Use the gender, age, height, and goal weight.

2. Enter in your normal sleep, normal desk job, normal walking, normal weight lifting, normal intense exercise time, avg hours per day. This method WILL underestimate the calories you probably actually do, if you work out intensely.

3. There is the maintenance calories you would probably be eating at your goal weight doing that level of activity on avg each day.

4. Now in MFP, My Home - Goals - Change Goals - Custom - Continue - change Net Calories Consumed to that value.
Change your Workouts / Week and Minutes / Workout to what you estimated in your activity level calculation (good to see that goal), change Calories Burned / Week to 0, and click Change Goals.

5. Now when you enter Exercise, just enter activity and time for tracking if desired, but 0 out calories burned. Put in the notes if really desired to know calories. Might be good for spot checks.

You may want to review your Exercise Diary a month down the road to confirm the hours spent match the estimate you gave for activity level, and if it should be updated up or down.

And now your Food Diary Daily Goal Calories will always reflect the same number, no credits for exercise, no big makeups to eat, ect.

And you are eating for the person you will become.

BTW, I tested a bunch of different body types, and only infrequently did the maintenance calories for the person you will become, end up lower than the current BMR, so safe. Only in obese situations, and that is exactly when that is safer.

Otherwise, do you really want to lose 20-30% of your daily calorie burn by lowering your BMR because of under eating?

Hope this helps with simplicity.

When machines estimate calories burned, they do so based on a measurement of the actual work being performed. Even though they have heart rate sensors, or can pick up the signal from a chest strap and display heart rate on the console, heart rate is not taken into consideration when estimating calories.

That's the way it should be--if you are measuring the actual work being performed, then heart rate is irrelevant.

HRMs have to use heart rate and other demographic info because they cannot measure actual workload--or the person is performing a variable activity in which workload cannot be measured--it can only be inferred by looking at heart rate.

The reason why most elliptical/cross trainer calorie counts are so inaccurate is because they use inaccurate or inappropriate equations to translate the measured workload into a calorie estimate. For simple activities with well-established energy prediction equations such as treadmill walking, machine calorie readings can be quite accurate.