I have been using MyFitnessPal.com to log my calories and exercise but am confused by the difference between MyFitnessPal.com and my exercise equipment. My exercise bike tells me I have burned 145 calories yet when I put in the time and speed in MyFitnessPal.com it is closer to 550 - 600 calories. How do I know which is accurate and which I should use? Anyone else with the same experience?

Thanks in anticipation.

I noticed the same thing when I was on the treadmill. I'm interested to hear what people say!

Amy

I have been using MyFitnessPal.com to log my calories and exercise but am confused by the difference between MyFitnessPal.com and my exercise equipment. My exercise bike tells me I have burned 145 calories yet when I put in the time and speed in MyFitnessPal.com it is closer to 550 - 600 calories. How do I know which is accurate and which I should use? Anyone else with the same experience?

Thanks in anticipation.

A lot of exercise equipment uses averages - the calories burned for an average height/weight person at average intensity. If you're, for example, twice as heavy as the average person and twice as unfit, therefore working twice as hard at the same level, you'll burn a LOT more calories - and any program where you put in your actual age, height and weight will be more accurate. Then again, things like elliptical trainers are notoriously inadequate. You can tell by feel what you're burning, not accurately in number, but if your heart is beating very fast, you cant really talk and you're sweating a lot, you're getting a great workout. So when you amble along on the elliptical for 20 mninutes and it tells you you've burned 600 calories - its WRONG. If you burn 600 calories in 20 minutes, or even 40 for that matter, you're going to be in no doubt that you're doing it, you'll be exhausted.

I like how all the experts say spinning burns 600 + calories in an hour - I'm very fit, and average weight for a woman and my bike computer usually says I've done about 25kms in a session and burned about 300 to 350 calories. I'd believe that more than I'd believe I've burned 600 - 600 is more like I'd burn running for an hour and that's harder to me than a spin class.

Short answer, there's no real way of knowing. You can only know that you've worked as hard as possible. If its easy, then you havent done that. Of course, you need some easy days but if you want to consistently lose fat - work hard, fast and make yourself breathless and sweating.

This may not be the answer you are looking for, but you can change the amount of calories MFP has listed. I do Gold's Gym Dance Workout for my Wii and the MFP calculations are always alot lower than what the game tells me, so I use the game's calorie count. It seems much more accurate.

If you can keep up with your heart rate, you can calculate your own calories burned. Try this link: http://www.livestrong.com/article/78365-estimate-calories-burned-heart-rate/

Good luck everyone!

I own a body bugg & that's how I keep track of my calories burned. It is constantly on me & constantly.tracking my calorie burn . I luv it!

The only thing that is going to be accurate is a HRM, weather it be a body bugg, body media (I want one...lol) or a polar HRM (have that). I go by that and it gives me completely different data than myfitnesspal and the machines.