Calories....

pottssteve

I'm confused. (Don't be alarmed, this happens a lot).

Yesterday I went for a ride. I was only out for an hour, and did a shade under 30km. Average speed 29km/hr. MapMyRide says I burned just over 900 calories.

Today I went for another ride. (I like riding.) I was out for six and a half hours (one of which was a lunch stop), and did 105km at an average speed of 16km/hr. Pathetic, I know, but it's hilly around here, there was a force 5 blowing most of the day, and I'm old and fat. (This equates to almost 20km/hr if I don't include the lunch break, which sounds a bit better.) MapMyRide says I burned just under 2000 calories today. Is this realistic? If so, it seems a better use of time to do short, fast rides to burn calories (and so maybe lose a bit of extra lard), but presumably do longer rides to build stamina and endurance. Or MapMyRide is cr@p at calorie calculations.

Is it possible to estimate calorie use using a simple calculation?


Does any of this make sense? Advice and views would be appreciated, 'cos there's no Tour on telly today.

Cheers,
Steve

crumbschief

What did you have for lunch?

danowat

Calorie calc is crap period, however.

High(er) intensity workouts, time for time, burn more calories.

Zoomer37

crumbschief wrote:

What did you have for lunch?

Chips

pottssteve

Crumbschief - I had a chicken baguette, a coffee, a small cake and a can of still fruit drink. The place we were going to patronize was shut so we had to go to a little boulangerie. However, MapMyRide doesn't know this.

Cadseen, to answer your questions:

cadseen wrote:

How is the calorie count estimated ?
I don't know, I put my route and time in and it gives me a number.

Does it work on your heart rate.
No

Does it take into account elevation ?
I assume so as it maps my ride.

Have you put all the correct details in ? i.e. weight

Yes - it asks for rider weight only, not bike weight.

However, I would assume that all of these factors would be the same as I was using the same program each time so any errors would be consistent between the two rides.

Out of interest, I thought steady riding burned about 500 calories an hour; does anyone know if this is realistic?


Cheers,
Steve

MountainMonster

I get this often as well, it could be you didn't lube up the sensors on your hr monitor.

Depends on how hard you really ride, and what exactly it is. I have a flat route, and when riding that, I burn about 1300 calories in 45 minutes but it's fairly flat. When I (rarely) train just on climbing, I find a mountain that is big enough to ride for about an hour of climbing. Being in the mountains for that hour, especially when pushing myself as sometimes I have my wife aiting for me at the top I burn about 2000 calories. All depends where and how your riding.

pottssteve

MountainMonster wrote:

I get this often as well, it could be you didn't lube up the sensors on your hr monitor.

Depends on how hard you really ride, and what exactly it is. I have a flat route, and when riding that, I burn about 1300 calories in 45 minutes but it's fairly flat. When I (rarely) train just on climbing, I find a mountain that is big enough to ride for about an hour of climbing. Being in the mountains for that hour, especially when pushing myself as sometimes I have my wife aiting for me at the top I burn about 2000 calories. All depends where and how your riding.

Sounds like your mountains are bigger than mine! I don't use a heart-rate monitor, I just put time and route into the MapMyRide website and it gives me a figure......which is probably wrong...

MountainMonster

pottssteve wrote:

MountainMonster wrote:

I get this often as well, it could be you didn't lube up the sensors on your hr monitor.

Depends on how hard you really ride, and what exactly it is. I have a flat route, and when riding that, I burn about 1300 calories in 45 minutes but it's fairly flat. When I (rarely) train just on climbing, I find a mountain that is big enough to ride for about an hour of climbing. Being in the mountains for that hour, especially when pushing myself as sometimes I have my wife aiting for me at the top I burn about 2000 calories. All depends where and how your riding.

Sounds like your mountains are bigger than mine! I don't use a heart-rate monitor, I just put time and route into the MapMyRide website and it gives me a figure......which is probably wrong...

A quote from one those is normally worthless, just like the quotes on gym machines in fitness centers. Best to buy a really cheapo HRM, and check that way if you want an even remotely accurate quote,

Yeah we got some pretty decent mountains here, Austrias famous for them.

Wacky Racer

Out of interest, I thought steady riding burned about 500 calories an hour; does anyone know if this is realistic?

Very reasonable. 5 calories per pound of body weight, per hour at 17 - 20MPH. Therefore if you weigh 10 stone (140lb) you are talking approx 700 per hour. 12 - 14MPH burns about 3.5 calories per hour per pound, 15/16MPH approx 4.2 calories per hour per pound. Obviously this is approx, dependent on how much climbing/effort involved, in other words all flat will distort the figures somewhat.

pottssteve

Mountain Monster - yes, I've seen them. Spent a very pleasant day in Salzburg a few years back.

Wacky racer - thanks for the info. I did about 800 metres of ascent over the ride, which was 105 km.

So, if I've got this right. While cycling I averaged 12mph (20km/hr). My mass is 168lbs (76kg). So I would burn around 3.5 calories per pound x 168 lbs = 588 calories/hr x 5.5 hours of riding = 3234 calories. That's 1.5 times the figure MMR quoted.


Cool! I can have another Amstel beer!


Steve

amaferanga

MountainMonster wrote:

I get this often as well, it could be you didn't lube up the sensors on your hr monitor.

Depends on how hard you really ride, and what exactly it is. I have a flat route, and when riding that, I burn about 1300 calories in 45 minutes but it's fairly flat. When I (rarely) train just on climbing, I find a mountain that is big enough to ride for about an hour of climbing. Being in the mountains for that hour, especially when pushing myself as sometimes I have my wife aiting for me at the top I burn about 2000 calories. All depends where and how your riding.

2000 calories in an hour equates to a power output of about 550W. That's an impressive FTP - you should be riding the TDF. You'd probably win it.

MountainMonster

amaferanga wrote:

MountainMonster wrote:

I get this often as well, it could be you didn't lube up the sensors on your hr monitor.

Depends on how hard you really ride, and what exactly it is. I have a flat route, and when riding that, I burn about 1300 calories in 45 minutes but it's fairly flat. When I (rarely) train just on climbing, I find a mountain that is big enough to ride for about an hour of climbing. Being in the mountains for that hour, especially when pushing myself as sometimes I have my wife aiting for me at the top I burn about 2000 calories. All depends where and how your riding.

2000 calories in an hour equates to a power output of about 550W. That's an impressive FTP - you should be riding the TDF. You'd probably win it.

I''m still quite a heavy guy, I smoke, which just raises my pulse when i'm riding because of breathing hard, so the calories go fast. I sweat like a wet dog as well. All fun in the game though!

amaferanga

MountainMonster wrote:

I''m still quite a heavy guy, I smoke, which just raises my pulse when i'm riding because of breathing hard, so the calories go fast. I sweat like a wet dog as well. All fun in the game though!

Calories burnt mainly comes down to the power you're producing to propel your bike. If you're a smoker then chances are you're not putting out a huge number of Watts, even if your pulse is very high and you're breathing hard. Someone who is very unfit may have a very high pulse rate and be puffing and panting, but still only putting out 150W.

Perhaps you wouldn't be a heavy guy if you assumed a more realistic calorie burn as opposed to a ridiculous 2000 calories per hour.....

danowat

2000 cals an hour? :shock: , I am a heavy guy too (well, heavy for a cyclist anyway), and there is no way I burn even half that on a "normal" ride.

I reckon about 1200ish on a fast 25 mile TT

MountainMonster

Either my HRM has completely lied to me, but i've had for an hour and 15 minute ride just over 1900 burned a few times. That's going full whack though.

vorsprung

HRM aways lie about calories. One time on the turbo it said I'd done 900 kcal in 10 minutes

When it says 500 calories an hour, don't forget if you were lying on the sofa watching TV that would still be 50 calories an hour, so knock that off

Personally I assume my round trip, 2 hour, 50km commute over hills at a brisk pace is worth a total of 700 kcal

To be approaching 1000 kcal an hour I'd have to be climbing big hills at full speed

amaferanga

MountainMonster wrote:

Either my HRM has completely lied to me, but i've had for an hour and 15 minute ride just over 1900 burned a few times. That's going full whack though.

Calorie estimates from heart rate monitors are no better than semi-educated guesses.

1900 calories an hour would equate to a power output of about 520W or more. Even at 90kg that'd give you an FTP of 'World class (e.g. international pro)' level according Hunter/Coggan.

MountainMonster

amaferanga wrote:

MountainMonster wrote:

Either my HRM has completely lied to me, but i've had for an hour and 15 minute ride just over 1900 burned a few times. That's going full whack though.

Calorie estimates from heart rate monitors are no better than semi-educated guesses.

1900 calories an hour would equate to a power output of about 520W or more. Even at 90kg that'd give you an FTP of 'World class (e.g. international pro)' level according Hunter/Coggan.

I had no clue they were really that bad, i'll have to take what I get from that with a grain of salt from now on. Thanks for informing me!

Definitely no pro level for me!

geoff_ss

I've sometimes wondered if the speed you ride makes much difference to the energy consumed. If energy use is measured with time as one of the parameters then going slower means you're working for longer. In the end you've moved a certain mass (you and your bike) a given distance.

I know I'm writing nonsense and faster must take more energy (certainly more power - ie rate of using energy) but I'm not sure where the fault in my logic is :?

danowat

Geoff_SS wrote:

I've sometimes wondered if the speed you ride makes much difference to the energy consumed.quote]

It does, there have been a number of scientific papers highlighting that for burning calories (and coincidentally fat), high intensity work wins out.

keef66

Speed makes a massive difference to energy consumption.

"In the end you've moved a certain mass (you and your bike) a given distance" - true, this means you've done a particular amount of work. But to do the same amount of work in less time requires more power

And more power requires more energy.

Compare how I feel after doing 10 miles at 10 mph (nicely warmed up) with the same distance at 20 mph (vomiting)

Same goes for a car where energy consumption is easily measured at the pump. Driving at 40 mph I can get 800 miles on a tank of fuel. At 80 mph it's less than 500.