Originally Posted by
ChrisZog
Focusing on the attitude of it is a lifestyle change rather than "I can't have XXX. I need to have YYY." just feels better. App has me on 2150 net calories per day. I burn about 1200/hour at moderate riding and probably do about 1 hour of light riding and 3-8 hours of moderate riding per week right now. Being an accounting student my attitude is that 2150 is my budget for the day and I earn a bonus when I throw my gear on and head outside. It basically changed my perspective and has me losing again for the first time in 2 years and sure as heck feels better than the juicing did. And my favorite side effect is that I have acchilles tendonitis in my left ankle. It seems to be helping with that too. Maybe next fall I'll be ready to add some hiking in addition to the riding. And maybe one day even try running with the wife. We started biking because she loved to run but even 1 mile was enough to make the acchilles hurt for days afterwards.
1200/hr is way overestimate. My Garmin w/o heart strap would give similar estimates. Add the heart strap and much, much lower.
People with power meters can get failrly accurate calorie estimates. I think that shows something like 300/hr for people who can really generate some energy. Like double-triple the watts I can over a reasonable period.
Strava gives a kiloJoules estimate based upon bike and rider weight ad terrain. Converted to Calories remember to divide by 1000 for dietary calories....
https://www.strava.com/activities/270455948
My 23.64 mile, 863 ft climb consumed about 180 calories. I'm admittedly rather slow. Now I run wide armored tires and am more upright then most so maybe a few more...
I'm sure people with power meters can get you better idea, but people with power meters are likely in better shape and can burn more energy per hour.
p.s.
I'm 6 foot, 240lbs. My bicycle is 35.5 lbs.
Originally Posted by
Judi
I don't know if MFP does it the same way as Spark People, but I found that letting my exercise tracker adjust the amount of calories I ate didn't help with weight loss...I use Spark People and they really overestimate the calories burned on a bike ride. I've had to go back to not having it adjust my calories based on exercise, after 3 months of not losing any weight. I actually gained back about 5lbs...still down 175 from my heaviest weight but I'm not at the point where I can eat more when I exercise more, apparently.
I think the activity calorie estimates are for motivational purposes...