Calories burned; what's more accurate?
 

How do you track the calories you burn, do you use the machines number or do you use your calorie counter app(if you use one) my app (myfitnesspal) tells me I burn more calories than the machined at the gym do, so I under count the calories burned, I don't know what's more accurate, I don't have a heart rate monitor, atleast not yet.

Neither is 100% accurate---no machine would be. Although I do track my calories burned on my smartphone app (just for fun & to keep motivated), I do not allow it to affect how much I eat simply because there's no really accurate way to gauge how much I've burned. (I know you weren't asking about the latter, but I just thought I'd throw that in).

Yeah I don't let it effect what I eat either but I do count so I can get an idea of an average of what I burn. I guess I like to know odor my own peace of mind :3

I'm kind of curious about this too. I asked one of the trainers at my gym, because with the app I use, if you put in exercise it says you can eat those calories. Like if I burn 200 calories, my app subtracts that from what I ate that day. My trainer at the gym said that's right - since I'm exercising I need to eat more. But I'm worried that by doing that, I'm ruining the calorie defecit I would be getting from exercising.

Does anyone have a definite answer for this?

I use MyFitnessPal on my iphone to track my calories. I am not stringent with it, but it helps me to track my meals and keep a running tally throughout the day and plan my next meal. I have a very low calorie budget of 1200, so if I work out really hard, I do normally eat more. I try to keep a net calorie count of 1200, and the app is great for that.
If I use my machine, I use the number it gives me and put it in manually, rather than the default number on my phone. It just makes more sense to me to use the machine's output, since I've actually been using the machine, rather than using the number provided by the app, when thousands of people of different sizes, with different levels of exertion are using the same number. I know my reading on my machine changes when I work out slower or faster, so it just seems more personalized. None of it is exact though. The only solution is a heart rate monitor with calorie burn calculator.

My calories usually average out around 1700-1800ish. I dont factor in how much I burned because I dont know, I dont have a heart rate monitor either and the machines are never accurate. For example 30minutes on the gazelle it says I burn around 200 but Im sure its probably lower then that. Even still that would put me around 1500 on the low end if I decided to subtract the difference. But I never eat extra on purpose. I go by how my body feels when it comes to replacing calories. If I feel hungry Ill drink water first and wait a few minutes to see if the feeling goes away, if not then Ill eat some sort of healthy snack.

I think the main idea behind the heart rate monitors is so you can keep your heart rate steady for a more even work out. Kind of like going for a walk some days you might be tired so you don't push yourself to keep a faster pace like other days.

I think consistency matters more than anything in what you use to track it. The differences are probably negligible when added up for the week. I use livestrong.com's myplate tool and have had satisfactory results in calculating what I need for net calories when tracking exercise and diet. And I count myself sedentary and count everything for fitness including driving and childcare.

Unless you can tell the exercise equipment your height and weight, you're not going to get an accurate number for calories burned - you'll just get some sort of estimate for an average person. Apps like Lose It and MFP are also estimates, but they'll be better ones because you can give them some specific info. I use a heart rate monitor and the calories burned numbers I get are much lower than what the machines tell me.

Also keep in mind that the lighter you are, the fewer calories you'll burn doing anything, including exercise. It's a little irritating!

i've read that the calorie counters on the majority of the exercise machines are anywhere from 20%-30% off, so i wouldn't really rely on those. for calories burned, i just use my HRM, even though i'm sure thats not accurate either, but i don't really factor in the calories burned into my fitness apps anyways since i don't like the idea of "eating back" my calories. i tend to eat around 1500-1600 anyways, so it seems like enough.

I use a HRM and I burn more than what the machines and MFP says. I am a big person though! I generally eat more when I hard core exercise (burning 800-1200 calories) because if I don't I'll get weak and light headed.

If I go for a jog/walk or do low intensity workout (100- 400 calories burned) then I most definitely do not eat them back.

Right now I'm eating around 1260 when I don't exercise and closer to 1500 when I do a balls to the wall workout.

I make a rough guess by logging my calories, minutes of vigorous exercise & weight loss each week, then doing (probably needlessly) complicated sums.