Average Calories Burned

On average, how many calories does everyone burn a day with exercise.  I read in one thread that someone burned 1100 calories at the gym in one day!!  How is that possible??   I'm only burning like 300 a day with my cardio.  What are the rest of you doing?

If you're heavy or exercise longer, you burn more.
For half an hour of exercise, I burn between 400 and 450 calories.

I'm doing 40 minutes on a stationary bike at between 90 and 100 watts.  I put it to the cardio setting which is set automatically by age.  I think I could increase the intensity level as this one is becoming easier for me....I was just thinking I should lie about my age to the damned machine??  I'm also going to increase it to 45 minutes next week which will also help.

So long as you don't overdo it, sure. If you start feeling stiff and sore for long periods of time, take a break :p

See I'm not doing enough....I'm never even slightly sore from this. 

I generally burn between 400-600 calories a day from walking or going to the gym. I thought I was only burning 250 calories, and then I got a heart rate monitor and discovered, I burn more! You might want to invest in a HRM to find out exactly how many calories you are really burning!

In my cardio class I will burn over 600 for an hour.  On Mon and Wed I do elliptical in the am and burn an avg of 500- 600 for 45 - 60 minutes and then in the afternoon I do weights for an hour and burn another 300- 400 depending on what excercises I do.  I have a heart rate monitor that tells how many cals I burn and the fitter I get the less calories I burn.

Im at 290 well 289.5 today and if i do the lyptical for 30min i burn 445 pluse weights at about 380.  Now i am doing the lypotical for an hour burning 990 3 days a week and weights for one hour 3 times a week

I'm now doing a minimum of 800 calories, all of it is aerobic exercise to get rid of fat.

I'm male and weigh 212lbs so I find that I can burn them off pretty quickly, my wife is 114lbs and she only burns about half the calories I do over the same time period as she is smaller.

1 hour on the elipticle at level 14 resistance costs me approximately 1000 calories @ 13MPH.

Afew months ago (when I first started exercising) I was lucky if I could manage 300 calories and I left the gym totally exhausted.

I burn 940 cal on the treadclimber in an hour, and lift weights. I can burn 1000 cal on the eliptical. I stay at level 9 and keep the RPM'S at around 70.

Ok so apparently I'm needing to step it up, because I'm only burning 300 calories with 40 minutes of the bike....and I'm not getting tired or sore at all, but that's at level 5 which isn't very high I guess.  This site calls it a moderate effort.  I used to run on a treadmill but my knee hurts too bad..it happens when you get old and gain 50 lbs.  Maybe I should try something else....that bike is just so....pain free, I really like it!

I've also noticed some posts indicating that the cardio setting doesn't give an accurate calories burned figure....anyone care to enlighten me on what's up with that?

If you're basing that on the calorie count displayed on the bike, remember that its just a machine.  That's not always accurate.  (though I find they are usually well over what I'm actually burning)

The only way to know for sure how many extra calories you are burning is to keep careful track of how many calories you take in and how much weight you are losing.  There is a mathematical formula you can use to determine how many calories you are burning per day. 

This is found from the Hacker Diet ( http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet )

To calculate the average daily calorie shortfall (or excess) for a month, take the total weight loss (or gain) that month (for example 167-160=7 pounds), multiply by 3500 to obtain the total calories burned from fat (or stored there), then divide by the number of days in the month (31 for July, for example) to give the average daily calorie shortfall or excess. If you started July with a weight of 167 and ended it with a weight of 160, then each day you ate an average of  (167 - 160) x 3500 / 31
which equals: 790 calories deficit per day

Is anyone else not able to access the forums??? I am getting a message that says forums are not found or removed.

Uh.. you posted.
Ergo, one would assume you can access the forums :)

not exactly true hk.....I can only see the most recent threads, if I try to go into any of the forums, it gives me the message too.

Wow! I spent an hour at the gym and usually burn 300 or so. How do you guys burn so much? I mean, yes I do weights, which is kinda low, and yes, I can't do much running (injured) but yesterday I did 30 mins cardio (cycling to the max and walk-run changing every minute for 20 min) and only got around 300 including 15 mins weights. Usually 20 mins of the bike for me will burn 150 and I'm going flat out! I know that's 45 min but how do you burn 400 in half an hour!?!?! WOW!

Good on you!

Red

red_herring....THANK YOU!!  I was starting to feel like the biggest lop in the bunch!!  It is wonderful to know that there is someone besides me who doesn't do 3 hours on some cardio machine every day!!  Not that I don't admire them....I'm just not there yet.  You and I seem to be burning right about the same amount over the same time period.

I think it might be very difficult to burn a really high number of calories on a cardio machine.  They are specifically designed to be ergonomic and friendly, and therefore do not offer the type of resistance needed to really burn a lot of calories.  Don't get me wrong, I think they are a great alternative for inclement weather, etc. but I know for a fact that I build considerably more lean muscle  and burn at least twice as many calories if I ride my road bike vs a stationary bike.  The same is even more true for me of jogging vs eliptical machines.  I would be hard pressed to burn more than 400 calories in an hour at the gym, but I often burn 1200+ an hour when I am racing, etc.  Am I the only one who has noticed this?

Um, just today I burned off (reportedly by the machine) 1189 calories in 65 minutes (60 running, 5 minutes cooldown.) Ran 6.72 miles at 6.4 mph. I weigh 200 lbs.

The (big) reason why the rate of burn is so high for me, though, is because I actually raise the incline up to 4.0. It may not seem like much, but for every 1.0 raise in incline, I burn about 1 calorie more per minute. So, instead of burning 9 calories per minute on a flat plan, I can get up to 13 because of the raise. So, instead of 540 burned per run, it's 780. A bit of a jump. (And the faster you go, the more the incline increases burn more.)

Two more things before I go:
1) Cardio's main purpose is not for losing weight. It's for training your body to be more efficent in suppling oxygen and blood to your body. The fact that burn calories is more of a side benefit than the main purpose.

2) Losing weight is a numbers game. It's all it putting less into your body than your body needs to maintain the current weight. (And we all know this.) The trick, however, is knowing how to maximize (make more efficent) the process. The best and most efficent way is to just eat less. Second best, weight training. Third best, cardio. As long as those are the priorites for your weight lost, you've maximized your weight loss benefits.

Which means, who cares how many calories you burn during your cardio! If you eat way more than you need to, those 300 calories really won't mean all that much in the long haul. Maybe you only need 300 calories to maintain a healthy net loss of calories. Don't compare yourself to others in this regard. It doesn't do you any good.

aezell was right hk ;-). Everything is functioning now. I was panicing though!

i do the cybex arctrainer (LOVE IT) for anywhere between 35-50 minutes.

i burn between 500-700 calories on that alone.