Calorie counting - fitness apps

PaulStat

PaulStat

PaulStat

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Joined
1 Mar 2003
Posts
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Location
Cotham, Bristol
Soo I've been back on the wagon for a few weeks now with the aim of losing about 40lbs (6 lost so far). Anyway I'm doing calorie counting with My Fitness Pal as it just makes more sense to me. Overall net target of 1450 calories per day.

To make this achievable I've also been doing a fair bit of exercise. I fell off my bike a couple of months ago and fractured my Scaphoid, so instead of cycling I've been walking the 6.2 miles into work and back home again. Which is about 1hr40mins ish. Now according to Endomondo I burn somewhere in the region of 900 calories per leg, so 1800 ish total.

Today I decided I was fit enough to hop back on my bike and cycle the 8.2 miles in to work which takes about 35 minutes, now when I use to use Endomondo to track it it would estimate each leg to be 5-600 calories per leg so 1000-1200 calories in total. And it certainly feels like as I'm usually dripping in sweat!

But I used Strava today, and it estimated my calories at about 280! So as you can guess I'm a bit confused.
 
Endomondo is completely wrong.

Amateur cyclists will burn around 40 or 50 calories per mile, so the Strava estimate looks to be pretty much spot on.
 
I would guess your cycle is actually closer ~350 kcal and your walk is probably up to 500.

edit: Walking is probably similar to your cycling, certainly less than 400.
 
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PaulStat said:
Sorry how are you estimating it?

And yeah 6.2 mile walk 8.2 mile cycle
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40/50 kcal per mile for cycling, assuming you're pushing yourself a fair bit.

60 or so kcal per mile for walking, assuming a brisk pace. I'm not as familiar with walking kcal so it might even be as high as 70 per mile for the average person. I would estimate running as up to 100 per mile.
 
PaulStat said:
But what are you basing your estimates on, do you have a link. All the ones I'm finding are also on the high side.
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To be honest I would have to go and dig out a ton of links and despite my current forum spam I'm kind of busy in work today :/

I spent a lot of time asking around on here and comparing various different sites/calculators to arrive at those estimates. I've also been using My Fitness Pal to control my kcal intake since January and in that time I've been using these kcal estimates for all my cycling with great success.
 
I generally go on the low side for this, and estimate about 30cal/mile for my cycling, but I do a lot, and only weight 10.5 stone. The only way you will ever get anything near accurate is measuring power, where Endomondo/strava/garmin etc, will all give you fairly close results. Depending on your weight and effort put in, as mentioned above you're probably looking at 50cal/mile. But depends on so many things. If you're wanting to loose weight, best to go for a low estimate.
 
SoliD said:
I generally go on the low side for this, and estimate about 30cal/mile for my cycling, but I do a lot, and only weight 10.5 stone. The only way you will ever get anything near accurate is measuring power, where Endomondo/strava/garmin etc, will all give you fairly close results. Depending on your weight and effort put in, as mentioned above you're probably looking at 50cal/mile. But depends on so many things. If you're wanting to loose weight, best to go for a low estimate.
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Absolutely. I started off with a 50 kcal/mile estimate but I've now dropped that down to 40 kcal and I'm starting to get to the point where I'm wondering if I should drop it further (currently 85kg, 6'1'').

Going for a low estimate is okay but it really depends on how much of a kcal deficit you are eating at. If the OP is at a serious kcal deficit then I'd probably be tempted to guesstimate more kcal burned, at least at first. You don't want to eat so little as to lose weight at an unhealthy rate.
 
FrenchTart said:
Absolutely. I started off with a 50 kcal/mile estimate but I've now dropped that down to 40 kcal and I'm starting to get to the point where I'm wondering if I should drop it further (currently 85kg, 6'1'').

Going for a low estimate is okay but it really depends on how much of a kcal deficit you are eating at. If the OP is at a serious kcal deficit then I'd probably be tempted to guesstimate more kcal burned, at least at first. You don't want to eat so little as to lose weight at an unhealthy rate.
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Very true! Had forgotten to take that into account in my reply! Please ensure you're eating enough of the right stuff to not lose weight at an unhealthy rate!
 
The calorie count wouldn't just depend on miles, the climb and surface conditions increase the calorie consumption.

I biked through the muddiest crop field the other week and it was absolutely exhausting, I had to stop at the top when my rear wheel had picked up so much mud it refused to turn.

MW
 
Mr-White said:
The calorie count wouldn't just depend on miles, the climb and surface conditions increase the calorie consumption.

I biked through the muddiest crop field the other week and it was absolutely exhausting, I had to stop at the top when my rear wheel had picked up so much mud it refused to turn.

MW
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Very true. Like anything, kcal estimates are just that - estimates.

If I'd ridden 5 miles and all of those were up some massive hill I would probably increase my kcal estimate by a fair bit.

That said, you don't need to be perfectly accurate every day as long as it all averages out. Some days my kcals per mile might be too low, others too high, but it averages out at a reasonable amount.
 
Endomondo is shocking when it comes to calorie counting, a 2hour 18min hike up the local hills see it telling me I've burnt over 2000 kcal, just ridiculous.
 
for my 64mile ride logged with garmin 800 + HRM
strava 3,123
endomondo 4273 kcal
Garmin website
Distance: 64.10 mi
Moving Time: 4:18:32
Avg Speed: 14.9 mph
Elevation Gain: 2,139 ft
Calories: 4,273 C
Avg Temperature: 60.9 °F
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I'd assume the gamin results would be the most accurate and it seems endomondo takes the calorie count directly from my garmin rather than using it's own guestimate.

I reckon strava is slightly under what it should be, that ride almost killed me BTW I was exhausted for the last 10 miles.

Your body burns a lot of calories during the recovery period as well which I doubt any of these websites take into account
 
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