Endomondo Calorie accuracy

mattward1979

Hey all,

Recently started tracking my routes with Endomondo, and was wondering how accurate the calorie calculator was.

http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/2989435

That is my route that I take each day x2, and being a 10 mile route with a quite bumpy profile (The climb into Bexleyheath and Shooters hill being the main ones!) it shows a calorie usage of approx 820 each time.

I am thinking this might be quite high due to my weight, but would you say this was accurate? Or just a wild stab in the dark figure with no real scientific basis?

If I am burning over 1600 calories a day just on excercise, and trying to limit my intake to 2000 calories to achieve weight loss, I should be losing well over 2lbs a week! (which would be awesome)

danowat

mattward1979 wrote:

but would you say this was accurate? Or just a wild stab in the dark figure with no real scientific basis?

If I am burning over 1600 calories a day just on excercise, and trying to limit my intake to 2000 calories to achieve weight loss, I should be losing well over 2lbs a week! (which would be awesome)

Not a wild stab in the dark, but I'd take it with a VERY big pinch of salt.

Personally, I'd say that burning 1600 cals a day, and only taking on 2000, depending on your BMR, is not a good idea.

dmch2

It's very approximate. It's just distance x body weight x a sport specific multiplier. So no account of how fit you are, how fast you go, how hilly it is, how windy it is, how heavy / aerodynmic your bike is etc.

so if you change the sport from road to MTB all your calories will double in Endomondo.

They freely admit the weakness of the calculation but say the site is to encourage you to exercise rather than to accurately track calories. I still think it's a great site

Proper calorie calculations use heart rate as that takes all that into account and measures the effort you're putting in. Power meters measure the energy you put into the bike but a fitter person needs less calories to do the same power.

mattward1979

Ok cool thanks for the clarification!

Its a great site and application regardless!

37monkey

have a look at sports tracker, you can use a heart rate monitor with it
http://www.sports-tracker.com
I don't know if it's any more accurate but I found it a bit nicer to use than endomondo, not much help for your question though.

dmch2

It'd be nice if it accounted for hills (which gets asked a lot and is on their to do list) but I think the argument is that the inaccuracy caused by hillyness is small compared to everything else.

Given that they have the height data I wouldn't have thought it would be too much work to add though...

mattward1979

That was my initial assumption really.. Thinking that it was weight/distance/speed/sport and a modifier for (climb - descent) and average gradient.

Would be very cool if that was implemented.

dmch2

http://www.facebook.com/endomondo seems to be a lot more active than their blog or FAQ so have a poke round there in the discussion for some more info if you like.

JohnBoyUK

hey Matt, sorry to hijack your post but thought I'd say thanks - I've been along to the Seeds beginners group last two Wednesdays. Graham and the others seem a decent bunch, am looking forward to going out with them regularly. Hopefully I'll get my legs up to going out with the intermediate group soon at weekends.

mattward1979

No worries!!

Yeah they are a good bunch! Not been out recently due to Uni starting up again, but hopefully see you there before the weather gets too bad!

wyadvd

any idea if the workout calories include or exclude an apportionment for BMR during the workout?

cougie

That's well over - I think it's a more accurate calculation if you run rather than ride - in that case I'd expect to burn 100 cals or so a mile. I reckon cycling is at least twice as easy ad running - so 40 or 50 cals a mile ? All v rough and clearly a block headwind or tailwind messes it up.

wyadvd

yeah I knew cycling was roughly 50 calories a mile, but to say its easier per se is not stricly true, @20mph as against 10mph, calories per hour work out around equal (v interesting article in cycling weekly this week btw) .

what I was driving at was bmr works out at 1750 calories for me (calories required to veg out 24hrs a day) thats around 70 calories per hour just to exist. when we get calory figures from apps like endomondo or garmin, do they include this or are they giving a calory reading for the excess calories burned over and above base metabolic rate? I suppose if Ive done 830 cals on a 15 mile ride, 70cals is neither here nor there! sice they read zero when there is no motion , and im not dead when I stop at the lights usually, I have to assume it excludes bmr i suppose!

amaferanga

dmch2 wrote:

Proper calorie calculations use heart rate as that takes all that into account and measures the effort you're putting in. Power meters measure the energy you put into the bike but a fitter person needs less calories to do the same power.

Calorie calculators that use HR are still guesstimates....

Care to expand on your point about power meters? My understanding is that kJ expended as measured by a powermeter relates to calories burned by accounting for efficiency, which is pretty similar for all people. So if you expend 1000kJ then you'll have burned in the region of 900-1100 calories.

Its also my understanding that you'll get a more accurate calorie estimation from a powermeter than from some formula that usesHR.