Calories burned.

I've noticed that certain peices of equipment in the gym have higher calories burned, for example it's near impossible to work off a reasonable amount of calories on the gyms treadmills (it takes into account weight and age) while getting on the X-trainer or Stairmaster practically burn's calories standing still (again the machines do take into account age and weight)

Now my question is do machines like the cross trainer really burn more calories?? surely if i sustain my heart-rate on both machines at the same level i should burn roughly the same on both machines??? yet i seem to need to kill myself on the treadmill for over an hour before it gives me any respectable reading while i can burn 100cals in 10minutes on the cross trainer.

Secondly .... don't get me wrong i've never put much faith in these "machines readouts" because even when you do have to enter age and wieght the readouts are very standerdized and i've been told that for the most part they VASTLY over estimate.

However today in the gym i worked m ass off on my cardio day on the treadmill trying to get my hill sprints sorted my heart rate was insane ... 160-170 + and at the end of the session the stupid machine only thought i'd worked off 140cals .... grrrrr.

So i come home and plug the details into CC to try and work out my burn well that was a joke ... stupid thing ... no offence... i spent 50minutes on the treadmill at an incline varying from 4% - 8% but CC doens't have any options for running on an incline ... so i have to settle for flat running .. i finally decide to plug in

• 15mins at 6mph
• 25mins at 5mph
• 10mins at 6.7mph

Total burn = 399 cals

Now i know this is totally inaccurate because it doens't take into account the incline, nor does it take into account my hieght because im damn sure its harder to run 6.7mph when your 5ft3 than it is to do the same speed when your 6ft 4 ...my husband has to be clocking 10mph before he even conciders it a run... while 7pmh for me is pretty much a flat out sprint.... anyway so i know the 399cals is totally not accurate.

So i refere to my last option the faithful HMR unfortunalty im stuggling to belive the reading of 501 cals it gives me because although i admit i worked my ass off that seems kinda high and i thought the HMR was supposed to come in lower than the machines??? not 10 million times higher???

Sorry for the rample ut thus far i've always gone off my HMR and i've never even concidered taking into account CC or the machines so i very rarely take but the variance bettween seems HUGE!!

I've toning up quite nicely over the last few month which is great but its slow and with my first dance job in 6 months just 4 weeks away i can't afford to take the slow and steady approach any longer i need to maximum (healthy) fat loss to shift these stubborn few pounds

How am i supposed to keep a balanced deficit when really i have no clue what i worked off????   there is a big diference of a burn of (1540 + 140 = 1680) or (1540 + 501 =  2041) i mean seriosuly theres a 361 cal difference right there..... argh... if i assume the 140cals i could be eating waaay to little or if i assume 501 i could eat way too much and have yet another week of no scale movement.

I know im probabally verging on the obbsessive again ... as usual but i really need my intake v's output to be 100% spot on.

One way to look at it would be this:  Max burn of 2041 - Max deficit of 1000 cals = 1041 BUT you need a minimum of 1200 cal so you eat 1200 cals or minimum burn of 1680 - minimum deficit of 500 = 1180 but you still need the minimum of 1200 cals.  Either way for the maximum healthy weight loss over the short term you eat 1200 cals.

I learned a while back that you can't trust cc and machinery on calories burned they are more like educated guesses in the dark. I personally use my hrm and calculate burn based on height weight age etc. etc.

As to losing the weight quickly the best thing I know of is throw weights in with your cardio. Use hand and/or ankle weights to vamp up you excercise.

Watch your sodium intake and occasionally take some cranberry pills to flush out any water retention.

 

Aaron

It's nearly impossible to be 100% on spot, but your HRM is as close as you are going to get.

I can burn 440 cals just walking for about 54 minutes. I'm a big woman-5'8 and 204 right now, but even so, I think it is pretty amazing. Of course, I'm walking at 4mph which is a pretty brisk pace, but it seems "too easy," really. Still, that's what the HRM says and so far, my weight loss seems in keeping with what I expect, so I am assuming it's pretty close to correct.

Good luck.

500 calories in 50min of running sounds right to me.  140 is way wrong, and i'm sure you must have punched something in incorrectly, bec you'd burn more calories walking.  400 (CC's estimate) is also possible.  so i'd say between 400-500.  i agree that it's SO frustrating not to know how many calories you're burning when you exercise.  but, in my experience w/my heart rate monitor, the number of calories i burn is almost the same on any piece of cardio equipment; once i figure out the best way to get my heart rate up, i burn basically the same number of calories no matter what machine it is.  so although one machine will say i burned 1000calories/hr and another machine will say 600, i know that since i work equally hard, i burn equal amounts.

If you want a truly accurate reflection of the calories you burn, try something like the Body Bugg from Apex: http://www.bodybugg.com/

These things are amazing, and super accurate.  A little pricey I know, but if you're super serious about this and want to know what you're burning, you should give that a try.

Not that this is relevant, but also wanted to mention that one of the greatest cardio exercises (I think) is face-paced walking (4.1 - 4.5 mph) on the treadmill with the incline all the way up to 15% or 20%.  It's amazing to me how many calories you burn doing this.  I can't explain why it works or how it works, but I just know it works! :)

Keep it up, you are doing great!