calories burned not matching up

[RHIANNA]

I just got the charge hr and was very excited to use it on my workout this morning. My main exercise is and elliptical. It's a few yrs old but counts calories and heart rate on its own. my elliptical says in a 60 min workout I burned 1166 calories and my charger says I burned 798. these are vastly different numbers so how do i know what is right?

[imahawki]

1100 seems high.  Perhaps the eliptical is not taking weight into account and FB is?  A generic formula I found is 400 calories per 30 minutes for a 185lb adult.  So unless you weigh more and/or are going at an extreme rate at a high resistance, 800 calories sounds closer to reality than 1100.

[PaleoCrossfit]

It's my understanding that the elliptical will go off of just an average number.

1100 calories for 60 minutes is EXTREMELY high for a simple cardio workout. On average, an individual burns ABOUT 10 calories per minute for a cardiovascular workout. So, 60 x 10 would be 600 calories. Depending on your weight, and how long you kept your HR elevated 750-800 sounds resonable, but still a bit high.

I would be more apt to believe the FB calories than to believe the elliptical.

[Dominique]

Does your elliptical "know" your age, gender, weight and height? Fitbit knows, and that's how it's figuring out how you burn calories.

[Dominique]

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@RHIANNA wrote:

My main exercise is and elliptical.

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What happens if you log your workout on the elliptical as an activity in your Fitbit account, with the appropriate intensity (you can choose from three levels):

How many calories would you then get? This would definitely be more accurate than what the elliptical gives you. You can also compare it to what your Charge HR calculated.

[PaleoCrossfit]

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@Dominique wrote:

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@RHIANNA wrote:

My main exercise is and elliptical.

---

What happens if you log your workout on the elliptical as an activity in your Fitbit account, with the appropriate intensity (you can choose from three levels):

How many calories would you then get? This would definitely be more accurate than what the elliptical gives you. You can also compare it to what your Charge HR calculated.

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Agreed with this^^

Just as a side note, there is no possible way (unless you are absolutely sprinting the ENTIRE 60 minutes, and are considerably overweight) that an individual burns almost 1200 calories. I feel like your elliptical is tricking you 😞

[Heybales]

Ellipticals have so many variables that effect how a person can do them - that there are no studies that have provided a reliable formula for calculating calorie burn.

Each manufacturer is going off their own or public domain data.

So HR data is best estimate between those choices.

Unlike treadmills and cycle-ergometers that have been the main test bed in research studies, and have formulas more accurate than HRM's actually.

And that's actually a good way to do it.

Find your average HR doing the elliptical how you normally would.

Then do a treadmill at whatever pace and incline is needed to produce the same HR.

The calories for that effort are as close as you'll get to the elliptical.

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

[Heybales]

Actually, it's not that hard to hit 1000 cal/hr burns if decently fit.

Now, maybe not for the whole hour unless really fit, but not impossible at all.

You wouldn't even have to be sprinting. 10 cal/min is really a low-medium workout once you gotten past the stage of just starting to do cardio.

What speed running would you hit a 1000/hr by a very accurate formula?

Use the Gross option, as that's what Fitbit and HRM and database would report.

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

[josephz2va]

Also varies on your stride setting and making sure your Fitbit is set to the Dominant/Non-Dominant Hand.

I have my Stride set to 2 feet walking and 4 feet running. And the Fitbit set to Dominant Hand (right handed).