Calories Burned with Low Impact vs High Impact
 

Hi everyone, I just registered today but I am a frequent lurker. I have a question regarding my workouts. I usually do about 45 minutes low impact exercise on the elliptical or the Precor stairmaster and also 30 minutes of high impact jogging on the treadmill. I notice that when I do the elliptical or the precor, the machine says I burn around 1000 calories per hour. However, running on the treadmill the amount of calories bunred is an hour is almost half that.

I don't understand this because I find that running is much harder for me and I sweat a lot more. The ellipitcal is somewhat of a challenge, but even on full resistance I never feel I can't go a minute longer like I do as I near the end of my run. If my body feels like I am working much harder on the treadmill, how am I burning all these calories on the elliptical when I don't feel I am even working my body that hard?

I have read that the elliptical, stairmaster, and bikes are not accurate when calculating the calories but the treadmill gives the most accurate info on calories burned. If you feel you work harder on the treadmill then you probably are and I wouldn't go by the numbers anyway .. it should be on how you feel :)

I have a exercise bike and I think it is way off on calories burned. I do 15 miles in 1 hour at 14-15 mph and my bike says I only burned 350 calories. If I go on the Bally's website it says that I burn around 900 calories. I like to think that the Bally's is right. :D