Calories burned seems to low

[Lucullus]

I have a map my ride app which tells me I have used approx 1300 calories on my 65 min bike ride and my Fitbit charge 2 tells me I have used about 560 calories...that's a huge difference, which should I believe. My heart rate on my bike averages prob 15-20 beats a minute faster on my bike. Average speed 24 km/hr

[A_Lurker]

@Lucullus - Someone may pop in with more information specific to bike riding, but the 1300 seems very high (almost unbelievable) for a little over an hours worth of activity.  How many calories you burn is probably related to how much effort you are putting in.  I'm not a cyclist, but how many mph you're going affects your overall burn.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/135430-calories-burned-biking-one-mile/

So, if you're 190 pounds, traveling at 19 mph for an hour you might be burning as much as 1121 calories.  However I suspect that effort would do more than raise your heart rate 15-20 bpm.

[Dominique]

According to the Compendium of Physical Activities, bicycling at 15 mph (24 km/h) is 10 METS:

My calculated BMR is 1468, so my BMR/minute is 1468/1440 = 1.02. I would therefore burn 1.02 x 65 x 10.0 = 663 calories during such an activity. You may be younger and/or bigger than me, so your BMR would be higher than mine, but you still wouldn’t come close to 1300 calories.

It’s possible your Charge 2 slightly underestimates your energy expenditure for that activity, but it’s certainly more accurate than the app you’re using.

I would need to find an activity with a METS of 19.6 in order to burn 1300 calories in 65 minutes. That would be running at 13 mph!

[shipo]

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@Lucullus wrote:
I have a map my ride app which tells me I have used approx 1300 calories on my 65 min bike ride and my Fitbit charge 2 tells me I have used about 560 calories...that's a huge difference, which should I believe. My heart rate on my bike averages prob 15-20 beats a minute faster on my bike. Average speed 24 km/hr

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As others have suggested, 560 sounds a heck of a lot closer to the truth than 1,300 for just over an hour of work.  To put it in perspective, I am a heavy runner (5' 8" and about 200 pounds or 1.73 meters and 91 kg), my typical 10 mile (16 km) run will burn between 1,250 and 1,350 calories in about 90 minutes, and that is pushing a running pace way harder than cycling at a 24 km/hr pace.  For an easier paced run in the one hour range I only burn between 600 and 700 calories.

Try as I might, I cannot figure out how a one our bike ride will burn anywhere near 1,000 calories much less 1,300.

[emili]

@Lucullus at the risk of beating a dead horse here, that is way overestimated. You can look up to see how the app is calculating calorie burn so you know where that number is coming from. The fitbit number seems like its probably close to what you are actually burning. Of course not exact.. but its closer.

[Lucullus]

Thanks for the info. I am about 220 lbs and doing on average 15 mph for about 16 miles. So extrapolating that info I should be burning about 67 calories per mile or around 1070 calories for my ride. Fitbit seems totally wrong on this one. It actually tells me I burn more calories when I am walking, with a lower heart rate. A bit annoying really

Thanks again

Sent from my iPad

[dragonpupps]

1,300 calories in 65 minutes is pretty deceiving in that it's extremely hard to burn calories. I think your Fitbit has a better tracking for your calories. According to your map your ride app, you are burning 20 calories a minute, so 1 calorie every 3 seconds, which is nearly impossible to do. I'd say you're safer to trust your Fitbit, and if you are burning more, then that's better because you'll be in better shape. But don't believe the higher calorie burn, because since it's most likely not true, you might disappoint yourself.

[Mukluk4]

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@Lucullus wrote:
Thanks for the info. I am about 220 lbs and doing on average 15 mph for about 16 miles. So extrapolating that info I should be burning about 67 calories per mile or around 1070 calories for my ride. Fitbit seems totally wrong on this one. It actually tells me I burn more calories when I am walking, with a lower heart rate. A bit annoying really

Thanks again

Sent from my iPad

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By definition, a bicycle (complex machine) is to get you from point A to point B with less effort than using your feet.  I would expect you to burn more calories walking than riding a bike over the same time frame.

[shipo]

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@dragonpupps wrote:

1,300 calories in 65 minutes is pretty deceiving in that it's extremely hard to burn calories. I think your Fitbit has a better tracking for your calories. According to your map your ride app, you are burning 20 calories a minute, so 1 calorie every 3 seconds, which is nearly impossible to do. I'd say you're safer to trust your Fitbit, and if you are burning more, then that's better because you'll be in better shape. But don't believe the higher calorie burn, because since it's most likely not true, you might disappoint yourself.

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Agreed, the collective here has been trying to make that point, not terribly successfully it seems.  The fact is, to burn 1,300 calories in 65 minutes, most folks would need to exerting themselves to an extreme level, and even then to sustain such a high burn rate for a full 65 minutes is highly unlikely.

Using myself as an example of the above, I am a heavy runner in that I am 5' 8" and weigh a pound or two either side of 200 on any given day.  I just went through my log of recent training runs to find one with about a 1,300 calorie burn and came up with this:

• Date: 18-Oct-2016
• Distance: 10.14 miles
• Course: very hilly loop with 1,250' of climbing
• Time: 87 minutes
• Pace: 8:36 per mile
• Steps: 14,804
• Calories: 1,291

Note: even though I ran at a pretty good clip for an old(ish) man, it took me 22 minutes longer to burn the same number of calories reported by the OP's tools.