The calories burned readout on treadmills, stair climbers and elliptical machines, are they accurate

[AlCzervik]

i have a treadmill that i use about 5 days a week and i haven't programed my stats into it because i like to control it manually and not use the preprogrammed workouts so since i haven't plugged in my numbers i'm wondering how accurate the calorie counter is. Today for example i was on for 46 minutes, it read that i burned 462 calories and walked 3.35 miles, i changed the incline during the time i was on, i started at 1 and eventually got up to 6 out of 10 and stayed on that for 30 minutes.

i am really trying to lose the last 10 pounds so i'm trying to keep track of the calories in calories out thing.

please and thank you.

[noshenanigans]

1. as far as I know

I've been told by people at my gym and at Weight Watchers that the calorie counters on machines are normally balanced for people who way 160-180 lbs. So, if you weigh more than that I would assume you're burning off way more than what the machine says. I don't know how doing the incline changes.. my trainer has me do the incline backwards (like, walking really quickly downhill) but I still don't quite believe it burns more calories than the regular treadmill.

[AlCzervik]

2. then i must be burning less calories if the counter is set for that weight range.

waaaaa, but at least i'm back on the thing so hopefully i'll start seeing some results, i'm feeling them already.

[MissMillie]

3. some machines have you enter your weight so that can be figured in

but I would venture to guess that it's not completely accurate. Even when weight is factored in, the machine has no idea what a person's metabolism is like.

I'm willing to guess that the figure is a reasonable ball-park figure, but as for 100% accurate, I'd say no.

I don't think the incline affects your calorie burn all that much, but it will affect what muscles you're working and it will affect your heart rate.

(A higher heart rate will burn more calories, but not all that much more. The difference in calorie burn is not all that discernable between walking a mile and jogging a mile. There is a difference, but it's not all that much. However, lower heart-rate exercise done for longer periods of time tends to burn more fat.)

[Gormy Cuss]

4. My handy wall chart has these burn rates

You're walking at a pace of about 4.36 miles per hour.

My chart doesn't have mi/hr but it appears to be leisure walking
per hour of walking:

110 lbs: 240 calories
130 lbs: 285 calories
150 lbs: 325 calories.

per hour for running a 10 minute mile

110 lbs: 360 calories
130 lbs: 450 calories
150 lbs: 530 calories

Do you have the manual? There should be some discussion of what the default setting is.

[AlCzervik]

7. thanks and i do have the manual, i probably should actually look through it.

you would think that in 2 years of owning the thing i would have done that by now--but i haven't.

[SacredCow]

5. Not really.

It's an approximation based on averages.

[Hugin]

6. Umm... Calories burned?

Oh, mine seems to be set on 'calories added'!

Thanks for the tip! :)