Strava Calories?
Comments
-
you would have thought the main part of their calculation is the same and that it just assumes heart rate where it doesn't have it?
Not at all.
If you don't have HR on the Garmin it uses a completely different calculation basis, basically a correlation of speed and distance with a few details about your weight and age to guess at a calorie figure. This is OK in some circumstances (e.g., for me tends to match up there or thereabouts on flat-ish steady rides) but obviously your speed can be affected by many things which aren't just related to how hard you are working such as wind, road surface, rain, riding in a group etc etc all affect how fast you go for the same amount of effort.
Strava's is different again in that it estimates your power output and then uses that to estimate your calorie burn.
Good summary of the Garmin methodologies on DC Rainmaker http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/11/how-calorie-measurement-works-on-garmin.html0 -
Thought this post had died lol0
-
The only way that I know how much to eat every day is by seeing how many calories I burn that day, and then not eating more than I burn.Don't quite understand why this calorie thing is important...
I am very surprised seeing people say Strava overestimates calories because it always gives me far too little, and that is fundamental to how they implemented it. So if you are getting high estimates, something is probably configured wrong in your settings.
Strava shows you net calories just for what your legs are putting to the cranks. It does this by converting KJ to calories using the typical human efficiency for bike riding. It is very accurate if you have a power meter, except it is not anything like the calories that I care about regarding eating food because it does not account for the calories the body as a whole is burning during that time period such as arm movement, brain function, respiratory function, etc.
Just to give an example, FitFit will give me about 50 calories per hour for sleeping, and about 150 calories per hour for driving a car. Strava does not add that basal metabolic rate number into what it displays. Should it? I am not sure. I suppose it depends what you want the calorie readout for. I would say that it should, as people use calories in the context of food and knowing how much it takes to balance their work. And if you didn't want calories in the context of food, you would just use the KJ display.0 -
Strava - 1563
Garmin - 2808
fitbit - 5498 (in activity mode)
Go figure0 -
FitBit attempts to do gross calories. Strava is is just converting KJ for the leg power. It is not even trying to do the same thing.0
-
Trying to work out how many calories you have burned is completely pointless.
If you were just counting units of energy it would be fine but you are not a bloody battery, you are a human being. Depending on where you get those calories from in your diet has a big bearing on how your body actually burns them . So saying you burned 1000 calories means nothing unless you take into consideration if thwey are came from fat first or sugar. If they came from fat then the body will have used more calories cos it has to process it differently than if they came from simple sugar which don't need to be metabolised by the muscles first.
And again, counting the calories going in need to be take into consideration. Eating pasta and eating a mars bar are not going to burn off at the same rate. This is something all the power meters or algorythms in the world cannot calculate to any degree of accuracy0 -
Trying to work out how many calories you have burned is completely pointless.
If you were just counting units of energy it would be fine but you are not a bloody battery, you are a human being. Depending on where you get those calories from in your diet has a big bearing on how your body actually burns them . So saying you burned 1000 calories means nothing unless you take into consideration if thwey are came from fat first or sugar. If they came from fat then the body will have used more calories cos it has to process it differently than if they came from simple sugar which don't need to be metabolised by the muscles first.
And again, counting the calories going in need to be take into consideration. Eating pasta and eating a mars bar are not going to burn off at the same rate. This is something all the power meters or algorythms in the world cannot calculate to any degree of accuracy
Sure. What you eat before a long ride matters. I eat oatmeal so that it lasts longer. So true.
But if you are managing calories to lose or maintain weight, treating calories as calories is 95% of the battle. For years I calculated the balance of fat to protein to carb and balanced it. I did it that way. I also did it where I eat whatever I want.
Yesterday I had two Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers from Wendy's, 8 Chicken McNuggets from McDonalds, two bananas, a V8, 115 grams of bagel, a Fiber One bar, and a Fage yogurt. That is just over 2000 calories.
Calories that you eat will cause you to gain weight at a rate of about 3500 calories per lb. Counting calories that you burn will cause you to lose weight at about 3500 calories per lb. The math works. I was trying to lose just over one lb per week until the end of October for six weeks and did that my counting calories and eating 500 less per day than I calculated I burned.
On 9/8/15 I weighed 10.5 stone. Today on 10/28/15 I am 10 stone and 6% body fat. I am happy with that, so I will change from -500 to a balance.0 -
Trying to work out how many calories you have burned is completely pointless.
If you were just counting units of energy it would be fine but you are not a bloody battery, you are a human being. Depending on where you get those calories from in your diet has a big bearing on how your body actually burns them . So saying you burned 1000 calories means nothing unless you take into consideration if thwey are came from fat first or sugar. If they came from fat then the body will have used more calories cos it has to process it differently than if they came from simple sugar which don't need to be metabolised by the muscles first.
And again, counting the calories going in need to be take into consideration. Eating pasta and eating a mars bar are not going to burn off at the same rate. This is something all the power meters or algorythms in the world cannot calculate to any degree of accuracy
Sure. What you eat before a long ride matters. I eat oatmeal so that it lasts longer. So true.
But if you are managing calories to lose or maintain weight, treating calories as calories is 95% of the battle. For years I calculated the balance of fat to protein to carb and balanced it. I did it that way. I also did it where I eat whatever I want.
Yesterday I had two Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers from Wendy's, 8 Chicken McNuggets from McDonalds, two bananas, a V8, 115 grams of bagel, a Fiber One bar, and a Fage yogurt. That is just over 2000 calories.
Calories that you eat will cause you to gain weight at a rate of about 3500 calories per lb. Counting calories that you burn will cause you to lose weight at about 3500 calories per lb. The math works. I was trying to lose just over one lb per week until the end of October for six weeks and did that my counting calories and eating 500 less per day than I calculated I burned.
On 9/8/15 I weighed 147.5 lbs. Today on 10/28/15 I am 140.25 lbs and 6% body fat. I am happy with that, so I will change from -500 to a balance.
That has 0 to do with how a computer calculated how many calories you actually burned.
Age. Metabolism. Sex. General health all effect how your body processes them. I know people who can eat crap and drink loads but never put on weight.others get fat just looking at food. Someone could burn off weight quick. Some never seem to make progress.0 -
That has 0 to do with how a computer calculated how many calories you actually burned.
Age. Metabolism. Sex. General health all effect how your body processes them. I know people who can eat crap and drink loads but never put on weight.others get fat just looking at food. Someone could burn off weight quick. Some never seem to make progress.
That is what I have been saying - Strava calories have no connection to how to count calories to manage balancing with food because it only considers your leg power into into your crank and not other body function like respiration, brain function, arm movement, etc. But there are computers that can track that. For example, FitBit does that correctly and knows your weight, age, and sex - and will even give you calories burned while driving a car or sleeping. I would like it if Strava had a gross calories display also that was like FitBit but for Cycling.
BTW, the people who get fat just looking at food are secretly eating an entire package of cookies while they watch TV. It is impossible to be a certain weight without consuming the calories to maintain that weight. No matter what the situation, they are still consuming more calories than they need to maintain proper weight.
http://www.thecalculatorsite.com/health/bmr-calculator.php
A 5'2" / 160cm female who is age 40 and sedentary should only be eating about 1280 calories per day. If she is 11 stone it is not because she has a "slow metabolism." It is because she is eating 1400 calories per day. That extra 120 calories is just one glass of orange juice that people think is "healthy."
I believe that the brain's sense of knowing when to stop eating has evolved over tens of thousands of years before there was so much sugar in the diet. With the sugary food common today, it is very hard to know when to stop because if you stop when you are full, it is too much. And restaurant portion sizes are ridiculous and wasting food does not seem good. The solution - log all foods and stop at the pre-calculated number.0 -
It is very hard to know how many calories are actual in what you are eating.
It is also very hard to know how many calories you are burning with any accuracy. Either inactive calories or active calories.
All calories are not equal, people's bodies can convert some calories to energy more efficiently than others.
Using things as a rough guide and starting point and seeing how it impacts you in the real world and adjusting accordingly is your best bet.
just my two penneth worth
www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes0 -
Oh dear, we're lurching towards the Atkins myth now.
Hang on, does using the word "Atkins" Godwin a calorie/diet thread?0 -
It is very hard to know how many calories are actual in what you are eating.
It is also very hard to know how many calories you are burning with any accuracy. Either inactive calories or active calories.
All calories are not equal, people's bodies can convert some calories to energy more efficiently than others.
Using things as a rough guide and starting point and seeing how it impacts you in the real world and adjusting accordingly is your best bet.
just my two penneth worth
But dumb people want dumb figures that they can read off food packets then subtract what strava says and expect to be able to say things like "I was 750 calories in deficit today and 800 the day before" and to think it's scientific.0 -
You can do that with FitBit as the calories are set up to estimate that. Just not Strava.But dumb people want dumb figures that they can read off food packets then subtract what strava says and expect to be able to say things like "I was 750 calories in deficit today and 800 the day before" and to think it's scientific.
With FitBit and counting calories, you could easily be off by +- 20%, but so what - that just means you may lose 50 lbs a year instead of 60 or 60 instead of 50. It works if you follow the plan, log rides and weight lifting, and then eat what it says you can eat. I log in MyNetDiary and then transfer to FitBit because it allows food entry by grams rather than just by volume. Eating a "cup" of carrots is nonsense, because 47 grams is much more likely to be accurate. Prepackaged stuff I go by the label.0 -
You can do that with FitBit as the calories are set up to estimate that. Just not Strava.But dumb people want dumb figures that they can read off food packets then subtract what strava says and expect to be able to say things like "I was 750 calories in deficit today and 800 the day before" and to think it's scientific.
With FitBit and counting calories, you could easily be off by +- 20%, but so what - that just means you may lose 50 lbs a year instead of 60 or 60 instead of 50. It works if you follow the plan, log rides and weight lifting, and then eat what it says you can eat. I log in MyNetDiary and then transfer to FitBit because it allows food entry by grams rather than just by volume. Eating a "cup" of carrots is nonsense, because 47 grams is much more likely to be accurate. Prepackaged stuff I go by the label.
Do you have time to have a life? Only joking, what you do is up to you. Myself I work out what to eat just by deciding what to eat, I've never needed a computer program to do it, would never weigh grams of carrots, and it is completely obvious what is good or bad and what would be over-eating.0 -
Of course some people can do it, but about 90% of people are overweight (government standards say about 70%, but they are generous), so it can't be that easy. At my heaviest, I was 0.4 stone below what the government would consider "overweight," but I had excess fat (fat that had no useful purpose) and so was overweight by my standards.and it is completely obvious what is good or bad and what would be over-eating.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/04/two-thirds-adults-overweight-england-public-health
http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx0 -
It is very hard to know how many calories are actual in what you are eating.
It is also very hard to know how many calories you are burning with any accuracy. Either inactive calories or active calories.
All calories are not equal, people's bodies can convert some calories to energy more efficiently than others.
Using things as a rough guide and starting point and seeing how it impacts you in the real world and adjusting accordingly is your best bet.
just my two penneth worth
But dumb people want dumb figures that they can read off food packets then subtract what strava says and expect to be able to say things like "I was 750 calories in deficit today and 800 the day before" and to think it's scientific.
That's a bit of a gross oversimplification, I'm under no illusions that any of the calculation methods are anything like 100% accurate, but having a set target deficit really helped me to maintain discipline - and keeping a record of what you've eaten is a well known way of helping to reduce calorie intake anyway (e.g., keeping a food diary is often recommended as a starting point for weight loss).
Targeting a set daily deficit helped me to lose weight - if I was aiming for 500 and it was actually 400 or 600 then who really cares, it's still going to result in weight loss. It's the principle of the matter. Also treating it a bit more like a game with goals and objectives really works for me.
To some extent I agree that it is obvious what is good or bad and what constitutes overeating, however it's very easy not to think about that. Having the details on what you've eaten and how many calories were in it really puts it into perspective and makes it impossible to ignore.
Obviously it's horses for courses and you might find it very easy to control your weight without any aids (I have roughly maintained my target weight of 70kg since February without any calorie counting though), but not everyone's the same and I find that calorie tracking works for me when I'm trying to lose weight.
So long as you understand that the numbers are only estimates I don't see the problem (I like knowing how it's actually calculated, but maybe that's just me).0
