Calories Burnt

I'm planning on getting a hrm, but until then I'm relying on the treadmill calc. Upon completion it said i burnt 680 calories!!!!! This caught my attention, overall, I went for a total of 50 minutes, at an incline of 5 or 5.5 (cant remember as I increased from my usual), at a speed of 4.0. I'm 22 and put a weight of 249 in. Is this a reasonable amount? It seems a little high, even if I take the 10% off, thats still about 620 calories burnt

Here's the key question: Did you hold on to the handrails? If you did, then it's too high. If not, then it is a reasonable estimate.

I feel like the calorie count for the elliptical machine is too high on MFP and on the machine itself. I feel like there is no way that thing burns more calories than jogging or the stair-mill machine. It just feels like so much less work!

I have a treadmill that tracks the calories and fat burned. I don't go by the MFP calories burned, I go by the actual calories burnt on my monitor. Then I add it as a new exercise. If you don't have a monitor then this won't help but thought I'd throw it out there anyways.

I feel like the calorie count for the elliptical machine is too high on MFP and on the machine itself. I feel like there is no way that thing burns more calories than jogging or the stair-mill machine. It just feels like so much less work!

The elliptical is probably the most prone to error because it is the most difficult to calculate. Treadmill walking and running, cycling, stairclimbing, and even the concept 2 rower all have established equations for estimated calorie expenditure.

Since there is no standard "elliptical" exercise and every manufacturer has their own movement design, it is impossible to have a common standard. The only way to come up with a calculation is for a manufacturer to do their own oxygen uptake studies and develop their own algorithms. To the best of my knowledge, only Life Fitness does this on a consistent basis, and only for the last 4 years or so since they built their new testing lab.

I suspect other manufacturers use speed as the primary component, which means they will significantly overestimate for most people.

So Bates' kcals per minute would end up being round 13.6 for an incline of 5.5 and a speed of 4. Assuming this is right give or take a bit, would it be a correct reading if the machine told me I was burning 5 kcals per minute on an incline of 10 (max is 15) and a speed of 3.5? I'm 5'6'' and 121lbs...

And I'm not worth a lick of salt in math... :laugh:

Sorry, but math is required.

Treadmill walking is composed of 3 parts: a) resting VO2; b) horizontal component; c) incline component

For treadmill, VO2 (oxygen uptake): Rest (3.5 ml/kg/min) + Horizontal (Speed in meters/min x 0.1 ml/kg/min) + Vertical (Incline, as decimal x Speed in meters/min x 1.8)

1 MET = 3.5 ml/kg/min

Meters/min = mph x 26.8

Calories per hour: MET level of total VO2 x body wt (in kilograms)

For your workload:

Horizontal: 3.5 mph x 26.8 m/min (93.8) X 0.1 = 9.38 ml/kg/min

Vertical: Speed (93.8) X Grade (.10) X 1.8 = 16.88 ml/kg/min

Rest: 3.5 ml/kg/min --this is a constant

Total VO2: 9.38 + 16.88 + 3.5 = 29.76

MET level: 29.76/3.5 = 8.5 METS

Calories per hour: 8.5 METS X 55 kg = 467.5

Calories per minute: 467.5/60 = 7.8 calories/min

There you go.

If you don't like the math, think of it this way: it cost me $20,000 to learn how to do that ;-)

So THAT'S what MET means!! I've been staring at my elliptical stats, wondering what the heck that was...

Higher is better than right? So if I'm pounding away on the elliptical and get that MET ratio up, I'm actually burning more calories per hour based on my weight/difficulty level.

Yes. A MET is just another descriptive term. It stands for Metabolic Equivalent and it is equal to the estimated amount of energy we expend at rest--3.5 ml of oxygen per kg of body weight per minute.

It is used primarily to just express oxygen uptake (the true measure of aerobic intensity) as a simpler number.

E.g. most people find it easier to compare 5 METs and 8 METs as opposed to 17.5 ml/kg/min and 28 ml/kg/min (which are the equivalent numbers).

And, yes, the higher the MET number, the more intense the exercise and the more calories you burn.