Cardio Machine stats vs. FitBit stats - ACCURACY???

[KDM322]

Here's my question..maybe meant for those of you who have a HRM

So I've always heard that the stats on the cardio machines are incorrect, and I assumed that meant they OVER estimated your calorie burn....so yesterday the elliptical (with my age & weight entered into the machine) said I burned a total of 649 cals....buuut, then when I synced my FitBit & signed onto their website, it said I burned 796 cals in that hour while on the elliptical....and many of the postings on the Community message board of FitBit say they find their FB to be pretty accurate with their HRM...I've never owned an HRM and was just wondering if anyone has ever compared an HRM with the cardio machines (especially the ones where you can enter your personal info into it)???

Any advice would be great!!

[AilsaPearl]

I have the fitbit also, and I always go by what it says vs the cardio machine. I do the arc trainer for 60 minutes 5x a week usually and it says on the machine I burn about 700-800 calories in one hour. My fitbit says I burn about 500-550 though, and that's what I go by. The one thing I did notice though is that with the fitbit if I did 60 minutes on a very low resistance like 15 and incline very high like 20 it would log more than if I did a lower incline like 5 with a higher resistance like 40 although my heart rate would be higher and in my opinion that signifies a better workout. I think the fitbit considers more range of motion in that sense, but I think as a general estimate it's pretty accurate

[lisa130]

i was literally just going to post this Q and then i saw yours...

I just bought a Polar FT7 HRM that you enter in your age, height, gender, weight, and then, using a chest strap, it estimates your calories burned based on HR. It was saying my HR was 110 while I was brushing my teeth (Which i thought was high), so I checked it against my digital blood pressure monitor and it was spot on for HR.

Treadmill today said 236cal burned (i put in my goal weight on the treadmill, which is 20lbs lighter, since I heard they overestimate so much), HRM said 425!!! Since I eat back my exercise calories on MyFitnessPal - this is pretty scary!

Not sure what to believe, but from what I've read, the HRM will be wayyyyy more accurate than a treadmill/elliptical machine. I hope more people answer this post so we can figure out what's going on!