Why the big differance?
 

I'm hoping someone can explain something to me. I use Fitday to keep track of how many calories I'm burning for a particular activity, such as walking. Well, I got curious to see what a different website said for the same thing. In this can I used Prevention.com. Fitday said that I would burn 193 calories for an hours worth of walking at 3.5 mph for someone weighing 166 lbs. Then on Prevention it said that I'd burn 301.87. Personally, I like what Prevention said, but what I want to know is which one is more accurate? Or am I reading these wrong?




http://www.3fatchicks.net/img/bar-st...5/130/166/.png

In general a mile burns about 100 calories. So the prevention number sounds more "correct" although you do have to subtract the amount you would have burned in the hour just living.

Thats weird though, my fitday gives a different number for walking at 3.5 mph.

I don't think any of those calculators are accurate... I stick to one and compare notes with improvements overtime with just the one calculator...

Yeah, they're all just guesstimates.

For me, the way around the inaccurate calorie counts (on line, on cardio machines) is to NOT use calories burned through exercise as an opportunity to eat more. If I'm eating 1500 a day, then I'll eat 1500 whether I burned 300, 400 or 600 at the gym. Calorie guesstimates can be useful, as Ilene said, for tracking your fitness progress, but much less useful for allowing yourself more food :)

Without knowing your heart rate, body fat percentage (since muscle burns more calories than fat), and the temperature while you are exercising, I just don't see how any of those calculators can be close to accurate. I agree with Baffled about not eating more to make up for calories burned though exercise. I take all of their calculations with a very big grain of salt!

I use the calculators on the machines as a way of comparing how I do from day to day. For example, if yesterday the elliptical told me I burned 100 calories and today I get on the very same machine and it tells me I burned 150 calories, I know I worked a little harder today. That's particularly useful on the elliptical, where I have to set the pace myself.

FYI, I checked a couple of other sites:

• CaloriesPerHour.com said 286 calories for a 166-lb person walking at 3.5 miles/hour for one hour.
• HealthStatus.com said 326 calories for one hour at only 3 mph pace (didn't have the option of 3.5 mph).
• The Bally Fitness website said 286 calories for a 3.5 mph pace.