Calories burned when Cycling

Druidor

This ones bugging me as I am trying to loose some weight and have been using MyFitnessPal to tag my food intake and Endomondo tracker that links with it for exercise.

I have also been running Stava in tandem on my rides just for the sake of it, but I am seeing quite a difference between the two in regards to the calories burned.

Tried calorie calculators online and they are throwing out even more numbers so which to believe :?:

e.g.
41 years young
5ft 11 (180cm)
222lb (101Kg < weighed myself this morning)

Strava
http://app.strava.com/activities/733428 ... 3d63f48f9b

Distance - 12.4mi
Elevation - 345ft
Moving Time - 41:46
Max Speed - 46.5mi/h
Avg Speed - 17.8mi/h
Calories - 475

Endomond
http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/228185574/8064282

DISTANCE - 11.93 mi
DURATION - 40m:58s
AVG. SPEED - 17.5 mph
MAX. SPEED - 33.4 mph
CALORIES - 1017 kcal

Speed etc on Endomondo are nearer what I believe I am getting so looking more closely at that tbh.

junglist_matty

Roughly 500 calories per hour is a number commonly thrown around, although all calorie counters are super inaccurate, if you want to loose weight, eat less, exercise will help as you'll burn calories, but exercise alone won't do much, you have to change your diet.

drlodge

junglist_matty wrote:

Roughly 500 calories per hour is a number commonly thrown around, although all calorie counters are super inaccurate, if you want to loose weight, eat less, exercise will help as you'll burn calories, but exercise alone won't do much, you have to change your diet.

I reckon nearer 600 calories an hour, or 10 kcal/min - but 500 or 600 per hour is near enough in the ball park. My strava upload from Sunday reckons 4200 kcal over 5 hours which is 840 kcal/hour. Seems a bit high to me.

chris_bass

only way you'll ever know is to buy a power meter:

here are two of my rides first with heart rate monitor second without:

Distance: 52.60 mi
Time: 3:06:42
Avg Pace: 3:33 min/mi
Avg Speed: 16.9 mph
Elevation Gain: 573 m
Calories: 881 C

Distance: 51.52 mi
Time: 3:01:11
Avg Pace: 3:31 min/mi
Avg Speed: 17.1 mph
Elevation Gain: 580 m
Calories: 2,570 C

i wouldnt believe any figures really! as junglist_matty says - eat less, cycle more and you'll lose weight!

junglist_matty

Chris Bass wrote:

only way you'll ever know is to buy a power meter:

Won't make a blind bit of difference, everyone is different when it comes to burning energy; you'd have to have a full fitness test to give you a good idea of how your body works and how efficient it is at converting sugar/fat/etc into energy.

Just go with the average of 500 calories per hour, it's good enough, you'll probably burn more if you really hammer the pedals... When you eat food, count how many calories you put in.

Generally speaking, burning 3600 calories equates to shedding 1 pound of body weight, do the calculations for how much you put in, how much you burn through cycling and if it's a negative you will shed weight. That's really how simple it is.

Wrath Rob

There are so many factors that things like Strava, Endomondo etc are only ever very rough approximations using loads of assumptions hence the differing numbers. Even with something like a power meter, which will pretty accurately measure the amount of physical work done (in joules), you then have to make an approximation as to how efficient your body is in producing that work (20-25% is a common assumption) to convert to calories. The only way to be sure is a full on lab setup but that's not really practical!

From what you've posted I'd suggest that Strava is more likely to be closer than Endomondo. You can get more accurate by using a heart rate monitor (assuming that Strava/Endomondo then use this in their estimation). For what you want to achieve, i.e. weight loss, just eat sensibly and see how you get on. Lose loads of weight and run out of puff on the bike? Eat more. Stay the same or increase weight? Eat less.

jezzpalmer

junglist_matty wrote:

Chris Bass wrote:

only way you'll ever know is to buy a power meter:

Generally speaking, burning 3600 calories equates to shedding 1 pound of body weight, do the calculations for how much you put in, how much you burn through cycling and if it's a negative you will shed weight. That's really how simple it is.

1 pound of fat is roughly 3600 calories, but burning fat rather than carbs is not easy. Depending how adapted you are to burning fat, and at what intensity level you ride at you could find that you burn very little fat on a ride.
I really struggle to burn fat, I need to do more long slow rides; but struggle with that and there are hills everywhere.

I want to get one of these Fat Vs Carb graphs done, ideally for free LOL.



A power meter will tell you how many kilojoules you have produced at the legs, and they say that this roughly translates to calories, but there is some assumption going on there; i.e. that your body is only ~25% efficient, for every 1kj that your legs produce, the rest of your body produces 3kj in heat etc. And 1cal - 4.2k so it all balances out at roughly 1:1. probably far more accurate than a gadget guessing how many cals you've burned.

If you have a power meter then you can get an accurate/repeatable figure of effort.

stu-bim

I am about the same weight as you and use runtastic paired with myfitnesspal, again auto upload. As most above said cycling for an hour is around 500 kCal. But I find it easier to use roughly kCal per mile rather than time, with it around 50 kCal per mile, a little more if you push hard.

If your using mfp and putting in some miles you should have no trouble getting the weight off as already said diet is the one biggest thing to watch, I've dropped almost 3 stone in six months without killing myself

MFP will shame you until you stop eating crap

stu-bim

Try this


http://www.bikeweek.org.uk/calculator.php

amaferanga

junglist_matty wrote:

Chris Bass wrote:

only way you'll ever know is to buy a power meter:

Won't make a blind bit of difference, everyone is different when it comes to burning energy; you'd have to have a full fitness test to give you a good idea of how your body works and how efficient it is at converting sugar/fat/etc into energy.

I disagree. Human efficiency only differs by a few percent. If you assume 25% (I think) then you get a one-to-one conversion for kJ expended and kCal burned which is unlikely to be out by that much. It certainly won't be out by more than HR based guesses and very probably will be better than your estimate for the calories in the food you eat.

I'd agree with using 400-600 kCal an hour though - seems about right for a fairly slow cyclist. It doesn't take a lot of Watts to average ~15mph unless its up a mountain. I can average 20mph on flat roads averaging only ~200W which equates to only around 700kCal an hour.

mrfpb

One problem with trying to lose weight is that cycling is very efficient, ie you use less calories per mile travelled than just about any other means. So as others have said, don't see cycling as your main or only form of weight control. It's advantage over running is that it's easy enough to do for much longer periods and much more enjoyable, so you're more likely to do it regularly and long term.

Just avoid the temptation to over compensate with calories after a ride! (my problem)

paul2718

In the OP Strava looks much more likely.

I have a power meter, so I know how much work I've done in a ride, and this provides at least a lower bound estimate for calories burned. Three recent rides, RL100, 822/hour, 10 mile TT 1204/hr, 25 quite fast miles round the block this afternoon, 1022/hr.

But I'm not sure these are at all useful for figuring out how to lose weight.

Paul

Alex_Simmons/RST

jezzpalmer wrote:

1 pound of fat is roughly 3600 calories, but burning fat rather than carbs is not easy. Depending how adapted you are to burning fat, and at what intensity level you ride at you could find that you burn very little fat on a ride.
I really struggle to burn fat, I need to do more long slow rides; but struggle with that and there are hills everywhere.

What mix of fuel substrate you utilise (glycogen vs free fatty acids) doesn't matter. All that matters is the net calorie balance.

jezzpalmer

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

jezzpalmer wrote:

1 pound of fat is roughly 3600 calories, but burning fat rather than carbs is not easy. Depending how adapted you are to burning fat, and at what intensity level you ride at you could find that you burn very little fat on a ride.
I really struggle to burn fat, I need to do more long slow rides; but struggle with that and there are hills everywhere.

What mix of fuel substrate you utilise (glycogen vs free fatty acids) doesn't matter. All that matters is the net calorie balance.

Can you explain what you mean by "All that matters is the net calorie balance", Alex?
In the context of trying to burn fat to lose weight, or perhaps during endurance work; there is surely an advantage to using a higher percentage of fat?

From a weight/fat loss point of view (which is what the OP is trying to achieve), are you not better off at a steady pace rather than hammering along at threshold to achieve this goal?
And from an endurance point of view, if you're not burning fat efficiently (ie riding at a suitable effort level) you are going to struggle to keep the carb intake up and end up depleting glycogen.

chris_bass

jezzpalmer wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

jezzpalmer wrote:

1 pound of fat is roughly 3600 calories, but burning fat rather than carbs is not easy. Depending how adapted you are to burning fat, and at what intensity level you ride at you could find that you burn very little fat on a ride.
I really struggle to burn fat, I need to do more long slow rides; but struggle with that and there are hills everywhere.

What mix of fuel substrate you utilise (glycogen vs free fatty acids) doesn't matter. All that matters is the net calorie balance.

Can you explain what you mean by "All that matters is the net calorie balance", Alex?
In the context of trying to burn fat to lose weight, or perhaps during endurance work; there is surely an advantage to using a higher percentage of fat?

From a weight/fat loss point of view (which is what the OP is trying to achieve), are you not better off at a steady pace rather than hammering along at threshold to achieve this goal?
And from an endurance point of view, if you're not burning fat efficiently (ie riding at a suitable effort level) you are going to struggle to keep the carb intake up and end up depleting glycogen.

I think as long as you are running at a calorie deficit you will lose weight and therefore have less fat, if you run at a calorie surplus you will gain weight.

so if you burn carbs on your ride and have an over all deficit you'll just burn fat later on, and vice versa.

as a wiser man then me once said, energy cannot be created or destroyed just transferred from one form to another. so if you transfer more energy out of you than you take in you will lose weight!

jezzpalmer

Problem is you may start catabolising muscle if you run out of glycogen, you'd lose weight but not fat.

Does the body burn fat retrospectively after exercise?
HIIT supposedly does this by leaving the body in a state of raised metabolic state for a day or so, but that's not the same as compensating for a previous deficit.

bernardmcdonald

Druidor wrote:

This ones bugging me as I am trying to loose some weight and have been using MyFitnessPal to tag my food intake and Endomondo tracker that links with it for exercise.

I have also been running Stava in tandem on my rides just for the sake of it, but I am seeing quite a difference between the two in regards to the calories burned.

Tried calorie calculators online and they are throwing out even more numbers so which to believe :?:

e.g.
41 years young
5ft 11 (180cm)
222lb (101Kg < weighed myself this morning)

Strava
http://app.strava.com/activities/733428 ... 3d63f48f9b

Distance - 12.4mi
Elevation - 345ft
Moving Time - 41:46
Max Speed - 46.5mi/h
Avg Speed - 17.8mi/h
Calories - 475

Endomond
http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/228185574/8064282

DISTANCE - 11.93 mi
DURATION - 40m:58s
AVG. SPEED - 17.5 mph
MAX. SPEED - 33.4 mph
CALORIES - 1017 kcal

Speed etc on Endomondo are nearer what I believe I am getting so looking more closely at that tbh.

i don't believe you burned close to 1000 kcal in less than one hour, even if you were at LT the entire way. if i had to pick one set of numbers to believe here it would be strava without any hesitation.

edit - and above poster is right, it doesn't matter which number is correct as you won't lose weight unless calories out exceed calories in. eat less, ride more.

Alex_Simmons/RST

jezzpalmer wrote:

Problem is you may start catabolising muscle if you run out of glycogen, you'd lose weight but not fat.

Does the body burn fat retrospectively after exercise?
HIIT supposedly does this by leaving the body in a state of raised metabolic state for a day or so, but that's not the same as compensating for a previous deficit.

It's far more likely that you will simply be forced to slow down before you enter such a state.

Alex_Simmons/RST

jezzpalmer wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

jezzpalmer wrote:

1 pound of fat is roughly 3600 calories, but burning fat rather than carbs is not easy. Depending how adapted you are to burning fat, and at what intensity level you ride at you could find that you burn very little fat on a ride.
I really struggle to burn fat, I need to do more long slow rides; but struggle with that and there are hills everywhere.

What mix of fuel substrate you utilise (glycogen vs free fatty acids) doesn't matter. All that matters is the net calorie balance.

Can you explain what you mean by "All that matters is the net calorie balance", Alex?
In the context of trying to burn fat to lose weight, or perhaps during endurance work; there is surely an advantage to using a higher percentage of fat?

From a weight/fat loss point of view (which is what the OP is trying to achieve), are you not better off at a steady pace rather than hammering along at threshold to achieve this goal?
And from an endurance point of view, if you're not burning fat efficiently (ie riding at a suitable effort level) you are going to struggle to keep the carb intake up and end up depleting glycogen.

It's a mistake to think that one needs to "burn" fat during exercise in order to lose excess body fat. All you need concern yourself with is maintaining a (sensible) sustainable net calorie deficit over the medium term. It matters not the mix of carbs and fats used to fuel exercise bouts.

Indeed if weight / excess body fat loss is the primary goal, then the way to maximise the calories metabolised side of the equation is to ride as hard as you can sustain for the time you have available (in a sustainable manner over the medium term). Of course simply eating fewer calories is the primary means to attain a sensible deficit.

Generally though I suggest people train to improve fitness, and eat to get lean.

jezzpalmer

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

jezzpalmer wrote:

Problem is you may start catabolising muscle if you run out of glycogen, you'd lose weight but not fat.

Does the body burn fat retrospectively after exercise?
HIIT supposedly does this by leaving the body in a state of raised metabolic state for a day or so, but that's not the same as compensating for a previous deficit.

It's far more likely that you will simply be forced to slow down before you enter such a state.

Can you answer the questions in my other post please Alex?
And perhaps comment on the idea of retrospective fat burning?

Edit: lol I see you just did.

okgo

Strava I've found isn't that far out for rides solo with normal wind conditions. It's useless in a race/chain gang situation as it cannot account for drafting. But I've found that its within 10-15% of what my powermeter has said for my identical commute journey.

400 cals an hour would be fair sedate I think. 280w for an hour seems to be around 1000 cals, I did a 2.45 ride at 280w and used 2600kj which translated into around 3000 calories.

kamil1891

My ride from today, seems to prove what okgo is saying. Slightly above 3h, and 3000kJ of work at 260AP (309NP). 400kcal is a bit short even for a recovery ride ;-)

PS. the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/356346602

ric/rstsport

junglist_matty wrote:

Chris Bass wrote:

only way you'll ever know is to buy a power meter:

Won't make a blind bit of difference, everyone is different when it comes to burning energy; you'd have to have a full fitness test to give you a good idea of how your body works and how efficient it is at converting sugar/fat/etc into energy.

you need to ascertain your gross mechanical efficiency. however, just about everyone is between 20 and 25% efficient (and nearly everyone is in a much tighter range). It's therefore, extremely practical to just take whatever your Kj expenditure was on a power meter and say it's the same number of Kcal (e.g., you expend 2000 Kj of mechanical work, lets call it 2000 Kcal).

Just go with the average of 500 calories per hour, it's good enough, you'll probably burn more if you really hammer the pedals... When you eat food, count how many calories you put in.

or just find out what the actual expenditure was via a power meter! saying 500 Kcal/hr could lead to significant inaccuracies. i work with people whose energy expenditure per hour may vary from <350 Kj/hr through to >1500 Kj/hr

Ric

ric/rstsport

jezzpalmer wrote:

junglist_matty wrote:

Chris Bass wrote:

only way you'll ever know is to buy a power meter:

Generally speaking, burning 3600 calories equates to shedding 1 pound of body weight, do the calculations for how much you put in, how much you burn through cycling and if it's a negative you will shed weight. That's really how simple it is.

1 pound of fat is roughly 3600 calories, but burning fat rather than carbs is not easy. Depending how adapted you are to burning fat, and at what intensity level you ride at you could find that you burn very little fat on a ride.
I really struggle to burn fat, I need to do more long slow rides; but struggle with that and there are hills everywhere.

I want to get one of these Fat Vs Carb graphs done, ideally for free LOL.

in terms of weight management it makes no odds whatsoever where your energy comes from, so long as you expend more energy than you consume. Obviously, if you ride extremely hard then the time you can ride for is limited (fatigue sets in) and thus your total energy expenditure could be low. The best way of losing weight (note i'm not saying it's easy to lose weight) is to simply ride as *hard* as you can in the time that you have available (in other words if you have time to do a 5 hr ride, you need to ride it as hard as you can, but still be able to ride on your next available training day)

ric/rstsport

Opps, just seen Alex has replied with the same answer. Lol! should have reloaded the thread first!!!! ;-)

phreak

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

or just find out what the actual expenditure was via a power meter! saying 500 Kcal/hr could lead to significant inaccuracies. i work with people whose energy expenditure per hour may vary from <350 Kj/hr through to >1500 Kj/hr

Ric

Not everyone has the means (or inclination) to spend a hefty chunk on buying a power meter though A rule of thumb is no bad thing for the majority of cyclists that don't own a power meter.

okgo

There is no rule of thumb though that is the point. Pretty hard to know your FTP and therfore cal consumption without using powermeter, but as said Strava does a better job than just using a stupid figure like 400 per hour.

ric/rstsport

of course, i don't think i seriously suggested that all people should buy a power meter (apologies if it was taken that way). i'm just suggesting a rule of thumb of 500 Kcal/hr isn't much use!

phreak

okgo wrote:

There is no rule of thumb though that is the point. Pretty hard to know your FTP and therfore cal consumption without using powermeter, but as said Strava does a better job than just using a stupid figure like 400 per hour.

Without a powermeter though it's often the best people have. Even Strava won't be taking into account things like wind, drafting other riders etc. so will never be totally accurate.

A ballpark figure though should be good enough, especially considering the fact that it's very likely that your calorie input figure each day is only going to be an estimate as well. All we can do is try to make them as accurate as possible given our circumstances.

ric/rstsport

but given there's such a huge range you can't use *500 Kcal/hr*. it's rubbish.

phreak

What would you suggest as an alternative?