Calories burned??

I always trust my heart rate monitor, it is more accurate based upon your age, height, weight, etc. Plus if it's a HRM with a chest strap its getting a reading of your heartbeat. MFP and other online calculations are strictly a guestimate. With that said, I would go with what your heart rate monitor tells you. Hope that helps :bigsmile:

They are all est nothing is full proof. So when in doubt go with the lower account to play it safe in my book.

I hate this! My cheapy HRM gives one stupidly low number (I think the manufacturer's algorithm is poop) MFP another, and two different calculations using my stats and average BPM, one using V02 Max, give another. There's usually a 200-400 calorie difference for a 40 min workout. So, I take the lowest number and round up to the nearest 50. *shrug* I figure I'd rather underestimate than overestimate, and it's all educated guesswork anyway.

HR monitor is more active. I weigh just over 200lbs and when doing a run/walk/jog combo, I burn about 10 calories per minute. The less fit you are, the harder you have to work, and the more calories you will burn. When I first started working out my HR would skyrocket up to 180+ during spin class, and I'd burn 1200 in an hour. No kidding. As I got more fit, the cals burned went down because my heart didn't have to work as hard.

Unfortunately, they're both just estimates. My nutritionist told me that when you're in active weight loss mode, you actually tend to burn calories at a rate lower than any of the formulas estimate. I would be conservative in what you eat back.

No offense to your nutritionist, but this kind of sounds like bunk. As a personal trainer, I have never heard of "active weight loss mode" in any ex phys texts or articles... and the "fat burning zone" is also hotly debated. Nutritionists do not necessarily have education in ex phys, fyi. If you have a quality HRM, it is going to be pretty accurate.

Unless your weight decreases, as you become more fit, your calorie burn will INCREASE because you can work at a higher intensity.

The fact that heart rate decreases at a particular workload does not mean you are burning fewer calories--it means that your max fitness level is now HIGHER so that the workload represents a lower percentage of your maximum--the absolute intensity number has not changed.

Initial heart rate/calorie numbers observed when taking up a new activity are not reliable (calorie numbers are not accurate). That is because the body is not in a steady state--the heart rate number is real, but not the calorie reading.

I always trust my heart rate monitor, it is more accurate based upon your age, height, weight, etc. Plus if it's a HRM with a chest strap its getting a reading of your heartbeat. MFP and other online calculations are strictly a guestimate. With that said, I would go with what your heart rate monitor tells you. Hope that helps :bigsmile:

I totally agree...

I know this is an old post but I'm hoping someone will find my plan useful. I just bought a Zephyr bluetooth heart rate monitor and use Endomondo app for Android (app) to automatically track and post my calories burned in myfitnesspal. This awesome integration works great but I think it is overestimating calories and I'm gaining weight!

To figure out the overestimate, here's my plan:
1. With HR monitor on, run 1 mile on level ground and calculate calories burned through myfitnesspal Cardio - running (jogging), 6 mph (10 min mile) x 10 min. For me, this is 127 calories per mile. It does not matter my speed but this is a different topic.
2. Get the estimate calories burned with my app. Let's say app says 150 calories.
3. Calculate overestimate. With numbers above, overestimate = [ app estimate - myfitnesspal estimate ] / [ app estimate] = ( 150 - 127 ) / 150 = 0.15 (rounded). In friendlier percentages, this is 15% (0.15*100).

Now, if I have some random exercise which I cannot easily calculate through myfitnesspal (e.g. intense cardio yard work), I can use my HR monitor and app. If the app says I burned 150 calories digging holes through hard clay soil, then I will subtract 15% from that estimate and put that into myfitnesspal (150 - 150 * 15% = 150 - 150*0.15 = 150 - 22.5 = 127 calories, rounded).

I gained 1 pound and 1/2 this week from trusting my HR monitor and app estimates because I ate more. It was a good week but now have to work that gain off.

I did not see anyone talking about calculating the margin of error in any google results I found. I did find a tip that said don't use the HR monitor for non-cardio work (e.g. light house cleaning).

Good luck. Live well.

Who knows. Really, who knows. Unless you go to a physio lab, the best you can get is an estimate and estimates can vary significantly.

I've used a variety of values since I started losing weight in December 2010 and the "gold standard" that I use is the values that I got when I went to a lab and put a mask on my face for about 15 minutes while the instruments measured HR, breathing, and CO2 output. the machine spit out a report that showed what my caloric expenditure will be for a variety of exercises. You can have this testing done for in the region of $75 and it removes all doubt.

In addition to testing, I've used the formulas at runners world, the formulas here at MFP, the values from various cardio machines, the values from a Garmin 305, and the values from a Garmin 610.

If you want a GPS/HRM that will give you heart rate based calorie measurements, the Garmin HRM's that end with 10 use HR. The others, including my beloved 305, use estimates. The estimates can be very accurate (my 305 matched my lab testing) but some are quite inaccurate (my 610 tells me that I can run a mile while burning only 106 cals, for example)

Looking back over almost 2 years now, the money spent in the lab is well worth it because it tells you not only how many calories you expend during exercise but it also gives you an accurate number for BMR (MFP calculates me at 2150, my lab work shows 2058).