Do Cardio Machines Lie When They Tell You How Many Calories You've Burned?

Yeah, I often argue with my wife about this issue.

My question is how the stupid machine would have any idea how many calories you burned... I mean, people's metabolisms are so different, there is no way to tell how much energy is being used.

For the most part the calorie info seems like BS. Most machines that give calorie info have a way that you enter your weight. This makes it a little more believable i guess.

I stay way leaner if i'm running each day instead of cycling or any piece of exercise equipment. The pounding of running seems to keep me leaner even if i'm working out at the same heart rates on all machines, bike or running.

you are correct when you say:

"calorie-burning calculation on these machines is complete BS and not worth paying attention to"

just go by time and perceived effort.

on the elip, keep the rpms at or slightly higher than your running cadence - when you're able to run again, it will make the transition easier.

A friend advised me to use 2 levels of difficulty, or elevation or speed or resistance above what you're desiring as a mean base level.

He still feels that they're off by 10-15% not matter how you set them.

For treadmills you are better using the elevation feature to as high a setting as you can, without having any of the health club's owners/staff panicking and asking:

"What are you doing?"

What ticks me off about some health clubs is how much they can LIE about how long you can use a machine.

One place had an employee walking around checking times, heavily muscled iron-pumping NFL type, and shutting machines off while people were on them when they hit 30:00.

Thankfully, that club has gone out of business.

A cardio machine must lie if it tells you how many calories you can or did burn. The human body can NOT burn calories it can only metabolize them. There are not any thermogenic processes involving calories in the human body at any time. So yes your cardio machine is a liar!

I think calories is a unit of energy. And these cardio machines have a rough translation of how much energy is required to do the work involved in the exercises.

It would be pretty difficult to make these machines accurate for all body types because everyone has a different level of efficiency.

I agree with the other guys though - just go by personal effort. You can also use cals burned as a reference to change your workouts on the same machine.

I used the elliptical for 8 weeks while injured. I normally run 70-80 mpw. I used the elliptical for the same amount of time that I would spend running the 70-80 mpw, while trying to mimic the intensity. My weight at the end of the 8 weeks was the same as the beginning.

It's hard to know exactly how many calories you're burning, but if you keep the efforts honest, I think it's pretty close to running.

Just another thought... I read somewhere your basic metabolism stays elevated longer after running than other forms of exercise (i.e.: biking, swimming, etc...). So, perhaps, you're burning (or "metabolizing") more calories after running than cross training and that is accounting for at least part of the difference.

The actual number is of little significance. What is important is that over time, that calorie number rises with the same effort for a specific amount of time. That is a sign that your fitness is improving.

Unless you are using a lot of resistence in your cross training, you should be doing 150% of the time you would normally do when running to get the same caloric metabolizing benefit.