I bought a new Polar heart rate monitor that costed about $100 yesterday, and I used it for the first time tonight on the Elliptical. For 90 minutes on the elliptical, it told me that I burned 1175 calories. I assume a heart rate monitor would be accurate (and I am new to the elliptical), so does this sound correct???

This site suggests even more: healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

But it doesn't take into account resistance levels or heart rate or anything like that.

Point is, it might be accurate.. you burn more calories on an Elliptical than most other machines for the same amount of time.

I can't imagine lasting 90 minutes on an elliptical.. 20 minutes basically kills me

Wow! What is your resistance level?

I was doing level 4 cardio setting, the resistance changes throughout the workout but it goes up to 50. My heart rate stayed between 175-185 the whole hour and a half.

not to be a debbie downer but that seems like a pretty high number...even for 90 minutes.. if i stayed on it an hr i could burn between 500 to 600....

I'm having the same issue with elliptical training.

According to my machine it claims that I burn roughly 300 cals in 60 minutes. But, when I log my activity into LiveStrong or do calculations using online calculators it clocks my workout at 700 or more calories per hour..

If your hr was at that level the whole time, then yes I would say that calorie number is expected.

I agree having watched my HR and running and today had to use elliptical I would agree and my hats off to you my HR was 20 beats slower on elliptial than by running my running is wat yours is on elliptical! I am 60.