I workout 4-5 days a week, 3 of which are just cardio days (no weight training) where I do about an hour of cardio, usually on the elliptical. After 60 minutes on the elliptical at mostly what is considered high intensity (75-85% of max. heart rate) including a 10 min. warm up and 10 min. cool down, the machine says I have burned about 700 calories. Does this seem to be a bit too much to anyone? Can I trust that this is fairly accurate?
No, I am pretty sure that the estimates on the machine are on the high side. I usually cut the number in half from what the readout is. There is another thread on this site that has a pretty good explanation. See post 12 in this thread:
http://caloriecount.about.com/elliptical-trai ner-calories-burned-ft3218
The way I arrived at the idea that in reality I only burned half of what the machine thinks, is by comparison with the cycling data found at http://www.caloriesperhour.com/ (they have an activity calculator that takes into account your weight, exercise time, and intensity level). I know from my past experience what biking at 12-15 mph feels like, and if I am working about as hard on the elliptical, I should be burning calories at about the same rate. For me this comes out to approx 400 cal/hr, but the elliptical says I burned that much in 30 min.
It all depends on what you weigh. I do the same workout everyday, and I know I burn about 800 calories an hour on the thing...not by what the machine says, but by what CC says. I have also done the math as far as my weight loss and the elliptical's part in it is concerned and I am satisfied that 800/hour is pretty close.
If you weigh around 165 I bet 700/hour is not too far off.
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