How do you know how many calories you burn during exercise

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mjpisat
mjpisat Posts: 46 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
If you use a treadmill, elliptical, or bike at the gym, do you go by what it tells you? I hear a lot of heart rate monitors are inaccurate. How do you tell?

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  • cham35
    cham35 Posts: 1
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    I use a polaris heart rate monitor and feel it is pretty accurate. I wore mine once all day to see if my BMR was accurate. It was within 100 cal.
  • dougii
    dougii Posts: 679 Member
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    If I can program the machine at the gym with basic information like weight I will use the calories that it gives me. If i can not do this I track my time and exertion level (breathing rate and sweat) and then convert the time into calories using my Wii fit which in my opinion gives a fairly decent estimation (low if anything). At least everything is consistent this way. I think HRMs can be useful if you get a good one and program it correctly but my doctor has suggested that I not waste my money on one - he wants me monitoring breathing and sweating - so far his way is definatly working for both weight loss and strength gain.
  • bluefox9er
    bluefox9er Posts: 2,917 Member
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    I personally don't believe *any* device is 100% accurate. In the same token, I don't believe that the calorific values of the food we eat is 100% accurate either. I work on the +/- 20% accuracy of HRM and food calories and have decided to just eat less and move more.
  • SassyCalyGirl
    SassyCalyGirl Posts: 1,932 Member
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    The machines are not accurate-get an HRM-much more reliable. My treadmill more than doubles my estimated calorie burns. And it has been updated will all my personal stats.
  • mjpisat
    mjpisat Posts: 46 Member
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    I'm 5'8 200 lbs. Would it be realistic that I burn 300 calories in 22 minutes on the elliptical? I start out with a 5 minute warm up on level 3. Then I go 30 seconds on level 12 at about 10-11 mph, 1 minute on level 5. I repeat that about 8 times 12 minutes. Cool down for another 5 minutes. The read out on the machine said i burned 300 calories by the end.
  • tryinghard71
    tryinghard71 Posts: 593
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    Polar HRM with chest straps are very accurate.
  • darkenedfalling
    darkenedfalling Posts: 26 Member
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    machines like treadmills are automatically set to a woman of 5;8 weighing 140 lbs... so unless you are that woman working at the exact same intensity with the same fitness it will be wrong. some machines let you set it but again if you think someone more fit may run the same speed as someone struggling and sweating and clearly they aren't burnign the same. heart rate monitors take into accoutn gender weight and height and heart rate so are much more accurate but still not perfect. i was going to try that about the bmr leaving it on all day.. did it for about 6 horus and seemed good :) its amazing how mcuh your heart rate goes up ujst from walking around or typing etc compared to resting!
  • juliep1974
    juliep1974 Posts: 222 Member
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    I'm 5'8 200 lbs. Would it be realistic that I burn 300 calories in 22 minutes on the elliptical? I start out with a 5 minute warm up on level 3. Then I go 30 seconds on level 12 at about 10-11 mph, 1 minute on level 5. I repeat that about 8 times 12 minutes. Cool down for another 5 minutes. The read out on the machine said i burned 300 calories by the end.

    Unfortunately, I would guess it probably isn't realistic. For me, most of the machines at the gym come in a bit on the low side according to my HRM but the elliptical always overestimates my calorie burn by close to 40% (even when I put in my information). I use a Polar HRM with a chest strap and also feel it is pretty accurate (or at least consistent).
  • roxerella
    roxerella Posts: 80 Member
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    I'm 5'8 200 lbs. Would it be realistic that I burn 300 calories in 22 minutes on the elliptical? I start out with a 5 minute warm up on level 3. Then I go 30 seconds on level 12 at about 10-11 mph, 1 minute on level 5. I repeat that about 8 times 12 minutes. Cool down for another 5 minutes. The read out on the machine said i burned 300 calories by the end.

    Sounds too high to me. it's unusual for anyone to burn more than 800 calories in an hour. My stats are similar to yours and i burn around 550 calories on elliptical trainer in an hour. I do the warm up and cool down no number 7 and the other 50 minutes on number 12. I use a Polar FT4 HRM.

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