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Ok, So How Many Calories Did I Burn??

kimmydctkimmydct
in General Training Discussions
So for my Loseit tracking purposes, I've always used the kj number for biking calories burned. I just happened to notice that it gives me calories burned too which is about double the kj number. I know any device typically wayyyy overestimates calories burned but that is huge! I'm assuming my Garmin knows something about me (wight, gender) so it isn't some generic number but that seems high.

What numbers do you use?

Comments

  • Dino SartiDino Sarti
    Weird. For me KJ and calories are usually within 5%. Sometimes they are almost exact.

    Did anything change in the Garmin settings? Is your age, gender and weight correct?
  • kimmydctkimmydct
    Dino- I'll have to check. I recently updated my FTP but maybe I screwed something else up. I'd love to but twice as many calories. If its on the garmin, it must be true, right? image
  • Coach RichCoach Rich
    Across all of my "stuff," I've got thresholds, weight, height, age, gender, political association and marital status all set correct. Garmin uploads to Strava, Strava talks to LoseIt! and LoseIt! tells me if I can or can not eat today.

    The calories across all my stuff make sense, or rather nothing looks particularly whack. That said, Garmin Connect seems to overestimate my calories burned on the swim for some reason. That is, it will say I burned 600-700cals for an easy to moderate 40' swim, which is a higher cal/hr than bike or run. Just doesn't feel right so I adjust that number (sadly) down in LoseIt!
  • tim cronktim cronk
    For the bike and using a PM- Since the kilojoule is a unit measurement of work performed.... My understanding is that it would not matter what your age,height,weight, gender, ftp, etc are set up at.... Those that produce more watts/kilojoules simply burn more calories... Maybe the garmin settings is using HR ? Below are a couple explanations of why a kj basically = calorie .... there is a 5% variation which could add up over time... not perfect, but much better than HR or other estimates

    http://mccraw.co.uk/powertap-kilojoules-and-calories/
    http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/how-accurate-is-that-calorie-reading

    For the run/swim HR and other means of estimation are used .... So all your settings of age, height, weight , etc would come into play.
  • rlh2000rlh2000
    I have the same understanding of Tim in terms of kJ = calories burning more or less. Usually that is what my garmin says, but every now and then it makes some assumption based off of HR and is wildly different. Not sure why it only does that some of the time.
  • Coach RichCoach Rich

    Posted By Rachel Hawe on 04 Jun 2015 12:55 PM


    I have the same understanding of Tim in terms of kJ = calories burning more or less. Usually that is what my garmin says, but every now and then it makes some assumption based off of HR and is wildly different. Not sure why it only does that some of the time.

    I just looked at my run this morning, 7.12 miles, 57:45 -- 

    • Garmin Connect: 802 calories
    • TrainingPeaks: 802 calories
    • Strava: 1077 calories (!)
    • LoseIt!: 1077 calories, because it's pulling it's number from Strava...or Garmin Connect, I forget.

    In addition, Strava gives me an "extreme" suffer score of 164 whatever points...which is not correct at all. I need to investigate what Strava thinks my HR training zones because it apparently thinks I'm totally redlined every time I go for a run. 

    So the net is that Strava is integrating HR with pace data to calculate calories burned. So if your HR zones are incorrect in Strava it will give you more calories burned, which is fed over to LoseIt!, which says you can eat more.

    So what's the problem?

  • Mark HickmanMark Hickman
    I don't think Strava lets you enter different Bike and Run HR Zones...same happens to me. Bike suffer score is pretty accurate; every decent run is a sufferfest!
  • kimmydctkimmydct
    My HR zones in Connect look reasonable, but you can see for last night's ride, my kj was 841 and calories burned was over 1,600! I wish!

    https://connect.garmin.com/activity/793495791

    But on another ride, kj= calories.

    https://connect.garmin.com/activity/784606880

    I'm going to assume it is operator error and re-check all the other settings.
  • Josiah GarrisonJosiah Garrison
    Strava Zones Note: You can customize the Strava HR zones, mine are tweaked to mirror the EN Zone ranges. You do need to make the adjustments on your Mac or PC and it might be a feature of the Strava Premium package, which is IMO worth the $$. Pathway to customize your Strava HR Zones:

    My Profile - My Performance - Heart Rate Zones, click to edit - brings up a liner graph with sliders - adjust to match EN HR Zone Data. Rinse & repeat after each EN 5k Test.
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