Calories
Seanos
Posts: 301
I don't really care about the calories I'm burning because I'm not trying to lose weight (and I understand that the Garmin 705 calorie algorithm is a bit sh!te) but I was just interested in how I ended up with these results for turbo sessions:
1 hour easy spin, average HR 144, max HR 153, distance 20.06 miles,
End result: barely felt like I'd had any exericse, not even out of breath, 1503 calories burnt
1 hour sufferfest, average HR 160, max HR 184, distance 21.00 miles,
End result: blind, barely able to breathe, legs begging for mercy, 1229 calores burnt
Am I really burning more calories doing less work?
1 hour easy spin, average HR 144, max HR 153, distance 20.06 miles,
End result: barely felt like I'd had any exericse, not even out of breath, 1503 calories burnt
1 hour sufferfest, average HR 160, max HR 184, distance 21.00 miles,
End result: blind, barely able to breathe, legs begging for mercy, 1229 calores burnt
Am I really burning more calories doing less work?
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Comments
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Heart rate algorithms almost always massively overestimate calorie expenditure, I take it the garmin works this way.
Any calories expended without the use of a lab will only ever be an estimate.
The closest method out on the road is to use a powermeter as the total KJ's for a ride is approximately equal to calories expended by the body, as cyclists are about 1/4 efficient.
e.g. In a ride of 1000 KJ, your body would lose an additional 3000KJ as heat.
4000KJ = 955 Cals0 -
Yes - but whatever the algoryhtm one would hope it gives some kind of suggestion that teh harder you work for longer teh more energy you burn - comparing same body, input statst etc. A stroll for an hour for me might burn 250 kcal, a hard 2 x 20 sesion might burn more than 600. Op question sounds like something is amiss- both in total burnt for gentle session and less burnt for hard session!
No ideas why however....0 -
Just a guess, but if the calorie calculators use how HR is changing to infer stuff about what work your muscles are actually doing then I guess it might make sense.
If you imagine a short, but very hard effort where your HR goes up very quickly to say 180bpm over 30sec and you then recover by spinning in a low gear for a minute. You've put a short stint of hard effort followed by very little effort for a minute. So though your average HR may still be quite high, calories burned isn't as you were only really working for 1/3 of the time.
If however you sit at a constant, but lower effort/HR of say 150bpm for the full 1 and 1/2 minutes then you may actually be doing more work so burning more calories.More problems but still living....0 -
So you only covered an extra mile after busting your ass off and burned less calories... something is definitely not quite right seanos!0
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Don't forget you'd probably carry on burning more post-sufferfest anyway....
Is the sufferfest intervals/pyramids? Excuse my ignorance, I don't own a turbo.
There are days when I've done a lot let i.e 10miles vs 20miles but I've burnt way more calorie son the 10miler hills than the 20 not so hilly. It's a mystery - my 310XT seems a lot more accurate than any other HR calorie thing I've used. I used a cadence with it as well.0 -
No.Seanos wrote:I don't really care about the calories I'm burning because I'm not trying to lose weight (and I understand that the Garmin 705 calorie algorithm is a bit sh!te) but I was just interested in how I ended up with these results for turbo sessions:
1 hour easy spin, average HR 144, max HR 153, distance 20.06 miles,
End result: barely felt like I'd had any exericse, not even out of breath, 1503 calories burnt
1 hour sufferfest, average HR 160, max HR 184, distance 21.00 miles,
End result: blind, barely able to breathe, legs begging for mercy, 1229 calores burnt
Am I really burning more calories doing less work?
But in any case, your estimation tools are probably feeding you a load of tripe. To metabolise 1500 Calories in an hour would require you to ride at ~ 370 watts for the hour.0 -
I have a 705 and ignore the calorie counter completely. No matter how hard I ride I doubt I'm burning more than 8 or 900 per hour tops and probably something like 4000 over 100 miles.0
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and 20 mph is an easy spin???0
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20mph avg aint an easy spin tbh, unless you're going down hill all the way, clearly some stats are wrong as a suffer test would not be 1mph faster....
The Garmin estimate is for fat burger eating Americans...
On a hard 10 miles I burn around 370 odd calories, don't know if that is way underestimated but it may not be, the Garmin is tho.0 -
sampras38 wrote:I have a 705 and ignore the calorie counter completely. No matter how hard I ride I doubt I'm burning more than 8 or 900 per hour tops and probably something like 4000 over 100 miles.
I've got a Sigma Heart rate monitor and it estimates my calories burned for an hour of cycling at around 750 - 850 calories an hour. It's fairly consistent and seams to change depending on effort (based on heart rate) I use a sepearte cycle computer.
As I get fitter my calorie consumption is dropping as my heart rate isn't so high over the whole ride.0 -
what I was on about is your ability to do 20mph for an hour on a turbo and refer to it as an easy spen :shock:0
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Don't worry, speed means absolutely nothing on a turbo. The only thing you can compare it to is other sessions on the exact same setup.0
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Like I say, not really bothered about the absolute values (speed & calories mean nothing on the turbo), just the relative ones, i.e. why an easier session seemed to burn more calories in comparison to a harder one.
Thinking about it, for the Sufferfest I'malso using much higher resistance so that might explain it. And what Amerferanga said.
I think I'll just go back to ignoring it!0 -
I think that's best. Focus on effort level instead.Seanos wrote:I think I'll just go back to ignoring it!0
