Yet another calories burned biking thread

Ransaka

And I apologise for that, BUT, being a tubby biffa still and wanting to get rid of the tubbyness I have resolved to a regime of healthy eating and have a bit of sottware that helps me keep track of nutritional stuff like calories and the like with targets for losing weight to help keep motivated.
It includes an extensive exercise database so you can add in the correct amount of calories to balance out calories burned but it seems excessive to my untrained eye. As an example, it suggest that for someone of my weight (17st, 10lbs) an hour of mountain biking burns over 900 calories! I'd imagined half that amount. When I commute to work off road it's 8.5 miles, takes me a woeful hour and 5 minutes roughly on my full susser, has 7 of those miles off road and involves roughly 700ft of climbing.
Anyone who has experience of these things able to comment (like one of those gucchi garmin gadgets or what not)?
Does 900 calories seems excessive to you for an hour of off road riding because it seems way too much to me (not sure why, just does). Obviously it's hard work for me to tow my bulk on a 2 stone bike and a stone of backpack up a hill but even so it seems high.

Neil Fat man on a bike

At your weight it seems about right.
I went for a run last nigfht of 8 miles and bured 1526 at an ave heart rate of 152 a min.

Dave_P1

What are you using to work out the number of calories burnt off during an mtb session?

Ransaka

It's a piece of software for keeping track of calories and nutrition. I presume it uses your weight as the primary source of calculating calories against the selected activity as it doesn't display the formula at any point. I'm trying to keep as close to the daily calorie intake as possible so will see in a week or so if it's way out or not I suppose.

Neil Fat man on a bike

I used something like that before I got the heart rate monitor.
It's not a bad system.
But the HRM is not the be all and end all either.
Controlling intake relative to output is key.
So if your doing that right, then your bound to lose weight.

Ransaka

Indeed, I just want to make sure I eat enough to balance out the exercise without overeating or leaving my body in trouble after a few weeks by not eating enough. Like I said, I figure I should be able to gauge how accurate it is after a week or 2. As long as I'm losing weight and girth steadily and not feeling exhausted it's all good

And for Dave, I imagine the method is like this one as it gives a similar result:

http://www.caloriesperhour.com/help_burn_accurate.php

SJJ68

Hi All,

First post by me although been lurking for ages.

I've recently been told about Nutracheck by my Sister and her friends, so being the sceptic that I am I signed up for the free 5 day trail. On putting my initial figures in I was astonished to find I was only eating half the calories that I should have been, so after explaining this to my neighbour (Nutritionist) she explained in simple terms that my metabolism wasn't work correctly. So with the help from Nutracheck and a few sessions in the gym I've dropped from 17st 10lbs to 17st 6lbs in around 5 days and I'm actually eating more of the "right" food.

Goal weight is around 14st 8lbs and the website tells me I should reach it by the end of May if I burn at least 200 cals per day.

No connection with Nutracheck just a happy customer.

Regards

Steve

Ransaka

By burn do you mean a deficit of 200 calories per day? Because it would then take 17.5 days to burn a pound of fat off. A lot of initial weight loss is usually fluid and it takes 3500 calories to burn a pound of fat.
Not tired nutracheck but I bought something called the perfect diet tracker, one off cost of about £20 (or £12 through the apple App store), no subs and it's simple, calories in against calories out with a nice chart of what mix of carbs/protein/fat to aim for in order to get healthy weight loss. I preferred the idea of having something that I own for a one off fee rather than a web based thing that I have to pay every month for.

Yes I could do it without a bit of software but it's shiny and it motivates me it seems as it's a shiny bit of tech

SJJ68

To quote from the website :

I need

" To achieve a weight loss of 2lbs per week, you will need to follow the daily targets set below for food intake and additional exercise.

Food intake now = 2,291 a day

Exercise to burn = 200kcals per day "

Obviously if you burn more per day your goal weight date becomes closer. My Sister and friends have used it several times to loose weight, admittedly lbs rather than stones and have good success every time. I usually do a gym session 2/3 times a week in which I burn between 6 and 700 calories a session, it's the techno gym key system and the computer gives you the figures at the end of session.

Like you the I get the motivation from the gadget/software side of things

Steve

PS. Bear in mind the above figures correspond to my weight, height etc.

Ransaka

Ahh, that makes more sense.

It's a good idea that it makes you exercise for it as well (not that most MTBers need the encouragement of course).

SJJ68

I have never considered myself to be one who stuffs junk food down his neck but in the past couldn't work out why the weight wasn't moving, when I first put my normal daily food intake into Nutracheck I was only consuming around half of the 2291kcals I was supposed to be so only time will tell as to whether it works or not but I hope so as I've just paid out for 6 months membership

Steve

floosy

I use the livestrong website. It seems pretty accurate and is free..


Now lost 24lbs since September...

Dave.

MountainMonster

A HRM would be a wise investment, especially as the basic ones can be had for 30 or so. On mine on a 5hr long ride, but which many breaks built in, I average about 3500 calories.

As far as a software program to help with things, I recommend only getting the values off the web for the food intake, and keeping a good fitness log on paper, or find a site that allows you to put in your own data for calories burned and such. That is, of course, if you do spring for the HRM option.

njee20

A lot of the hrm's are still very inaccurate, Polar OwnCal is apparently the algorithm everyone wants. Garmin ones are daft for example.

Going right back to the top... I can't believe Neil burned 1500 calories in an hour. Running is a good way of burning them, but you won't exceed 1000.

Neil Fat man on a bike

njee20 wrote:

A lot of the hrm's are still very inaccurate, Polar OwnCal is apparently the algorithm everyone wants. Garmin ones are daft for example.

Going right back to the top... I can't believe Neil burned 1500 calories in an hour. Running is a good way of burning them, but you won't exceed 1000.

Your right I didn't it was 1 and a half hours at a high pace (for a big lad) and included about 600feet of climb, plus some intervals in the middle section.
In comparrison the guy running with me was around 1000 (not as fat as I am).

I'm sure a racing snake could have done the same burning much less, but as the name suggests , I'm no racing snake !