Its not even noon yet..and i've already burned over 1200 calories

I'm out of town right now, and this morning I decided to use the elliptical in the hotel's weight room. I did it for an hour, burning a little over 1200 calories.

I am a 16 year old girl, 5'9", and try to eat around 1500 cals a day. I weigh about 160.

The thing is, I'm not even that tired or hungry. I didn't mean to burn so much, I was just listening to my iPod, and the time passed without my realizing it.

So what should I do? Should I eat a lot to make up for the lost calories? What if I'm not hungry?

I think that is impossible. In fact, I know that is.

yes the elliptical is lying to you. haha. i think a better estimate would be 600-700 tops that you can burn on an elliptical in an hour. ours have a thing so you can input your age and weight and then it tells you how many calories you burn. even if i am going very hard, and i'm in pretty good shape, i have never burned more than 600 something in an hour. and I kinda dont believe i even burn that much on there b/c if you look on websites and such, they say the burn is much lower. i would estimate it around 600 if you were working hard tops, and use that to figure out your calories for the day.

Don't believe in what the machine tells you (elliptical, treadmill, etc.) This morning I took an 1 hour long spinning class and I don't think I burned more than 600 calories (I left my HRM monitor at home... stupid me!).

Try not to overrate whatever exercise you do. Use the calculators on the exercise section of CC. If you want a more accurate estimate of what you're burning buy a Heart Rate monitor.

Original Post by loveshine:

I am a 16 year old girl, 5'9", and try to eat around 1500 cals a day. I weigh about 160.

Yes, the elliptical is lying, but at 16, 1500 is the bare minimum you should eat, IF you are sedentary. If you are active, you should eat more - remember that the calculators on CC are meant for adults, and are not accurate for people under 21.

Oh, those ellipticals...such sweet talkers. ;)

sometimes i eat back half of what i burned but that is just me.
in this case i would add about a 300 calorie something if i felt like it.

Like everyone else has said, DO NOT listen to the elliptical machine. If you did it for an hour, I would guess you probably burned 500-600 calories. 

If memory serves me correctly the trainer only does about 110 per ten minutes so to burn through that many calories would be standing there for your entire after noon and that isn't something you do accidently.

Wow. I knew that was too easy. Yeah, I just pressed "quick start" and actually went through the whole workout, which lasted an hour. Why does it lie to me??

Because it's a machine. It probably hasn't been calibrated in years. And if you didn't enter at least your weight, who knows what it assumed.

Original Post by loveshine:

Wow. I knew that was too easy. Yeah, I just pressed "quick start" and actually went through the whole workout, which lasted an hour. Why does it lie to me??

 Because it's a male, and you've been riding him for a while and he wants something in return.

OR...bc there is no accurate way to determine cals burned without a HRM. Someone your exact age, height, weight could go on the elliptical next to you and you both be moving at same intensity BUT one will burn more cals than the other bc one is in better shape..those machines just shoot out averages..which, btw, are usually based on the av. male [h and w].

Original Post by fitnessgirll:

Original Post by loveshine:

Wow. I knew that was too easy. Yeah, I just pressed "quick start" and actually went through the whole workout, which lasted an hour. Why does it lie to me??

 Because it's a male, and you've been riding him for a while and he wants something in return.

OR...bc there is no accurate way to determine cals burned without a HRM. Someone your exact age, height, weight could go on the elliptical next to you and you both be moving at same intensity BUT one will burn more cals than the other bc one is in better shape..those machines just shoot out averages..which, btw, are usually based on the av. male [h and w].

I lol'd.

Original Post by fitnessgirll:

Original Post by loveshine:

Wow. I knew that was too easy. Yeah, I just pressed "quick start" and actually went through the whole workout, which lasted an hour. Why does it lie to me??

 Because it's a male, and you've been riding him for a while and he wants something in return.

AHAH! That's really all you needed to say!

um yeah-- I'm 190 lbs and go at a moderate effort and in an hour only burn 700 calories so I know that ain't happening for you.

Make sure you enter your info before doing a workout if it's an option -- or enter what you did here on calorie count and go by what they say. They're about even with my machines settings

I suspect that even CC overestimates the calories burned. I usually set my workout as 'light' or moderate even if I worked out really hard and then eat accordingly.

CC is actually pretty reasonably accurate if you estimate your workout intensity correctly - the precision isn't the same as with using a heart rate monitor, but it's close enough for government work. Use the best estimate you can come up with for your intensity and eat accordingly, and your actual weight loss will track your projected weight loss pretty closely.

 An elliptical you enter all your stats into and that's hooked up to a HRM will be reasonably accurate - if it's been recently calibrated. The wear and tear on it will tend to throw off the equations it uses to estimate the longer it's been since its last tuneup.

 And an elliptical you don't enter much of any stats into generally will have less accuracy than a guess.

How do you know you burned 1200???

Just as an FYI, I did a sprint triathlon @ 170 pounds.  According to CC, that was 1400 calories, and took over an hour and a half.  At 165 pounds, an 86 minute run @ 6 mph will burn under 1100 calories.  For both those activities, we're talking about a heart rate of over 160 for the bulk of the time (as per my heart rate monitor).

So I'm suspecting that your exercise machine is over-estimating your burn.  But great job in doing an elliptical for an hour!

Clint