Does anyone know of an accurate activity calculator?
I would like to know how many calories I burn per activity: cycling, running, swimming, walking, crunch routine, weights, etc.
I found one at http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.html
for cycling @ 16-19mph for 1 hour and 30 minutes it stated around 1300 calories. Can that really be accurate?
Thanks for any responses,
Guy
1300 for a hour and a half seems a lil too much… My polar counts around 800 Kcal in a 1h30 ride at 30hm/h average.
The best way is to use the OwnCal “system” from polar. Those sites aren’t always accurate.
There is no way to measure this accurately outside of the lab.
The Polar OwnCal system is not accurate at all. It is based on one accurate input parameter, namely, heart rate. In addition, weight, age and sex etc., are used as constants. Taken together a very simple mathematical formula predicts an approximate caloric intake with a large margin of error.
In fact nearly all of the Polar functions (e.g. OwnIndex) are inaccurate mathematical computations on the basis of statistical tables that were used to derive the various formulae. These are good as performance indicators when compared between sessions, but the actual figures are incorrect (using the OwnIdex example the score is not your VO2Max).
I dare to desagree with you pluto.
THe best way to figure out how many Kcal you spend in a exercise is thru you HR analyze. Polar OwnCal uses every single sample of HR he gets from an exercise and with your HRmax (important one this), weight, height, age and sex, calculates for every single timestep the calories spent. Then at the end he gets all samples together and gives you the total spent during exercice. HRmax, weight, height, age and sex have to be consider as constants during exercice, despite weight that may vary A LITTLE, the other ones are obvious… they stay constant.
I think this is the most accurate way of counting calories. Usually I see some sites were you see things like “cycling, at normal speed - x Kcal” but how can we count kcal spent looking at our speed?! I can go at the same speed as a team mate and be spending much more calories.
Just my opinion 
If I ride for one hour at exactly HR 150 and I run for one hour at the exact same HR, the Polar will report the exact same calories.
However, the Polar is the best tool that I have available for measuring calorie usage.
One more thing…
I’m not saying that OwnCal is exact. What I’m saying is that from the endless number of calculators and others like, that count calories, Owncal is the most accurate but far from precise!
I manage an online software application that estimates caloric consumption and expenditure for women looking to lose weight and get in shape. You can estimate caloric expenditure, but in order to ensure accuracy, age, weight, gender, fitness level and the intensity of the exercise (based on heart rate) need to be considered.
It’s a pay program, but if you want to give it a spin, there is a 10-Day trial:
If your HRmax is the same for the bike and for the run, OwnCal will give you the same number of Kcal. Well… that’s not accurate, but is a better way to have an idea of how many did you spent than the site you posted here. 
MY OPINION
As I said only one paramater varies over time - HR
.
I am interested to know why do you need a precise measure of calories. My wife uses it to motivate herself and to justify eating deserts and chocolate after hard sessions.
Do you use this measure to calculate food intake requirement during training or racing? Weight management?
Personally, I have never found this feature of any use.
Personally, I have never found this feature of any use.
One thing the Polar Owncal is proportional to for a given individual is total # of heartbeats. That could be a convenient means for estimating total daily/weekly/monthly aerobic training workload (a composite measure of frequency, duration, & intensity).
Targeting a weekly ‘Owncal’ number would ensure volume is limited during high intensity training weeks; offer a meaningful means to gauge progressive increases in workload with variable daily training volume/intensity; etc.
I have a palm program I use .Runners log . It is cheep and easy .
www.fitnesslogs.com
I have a palm program I use .Runners log . It is cheep and easy .
It is cheap and easy, and being Palm based probably works very well. But it is inaccurate and imprecise.
It does not resolve the underlying issue; it is simply a different implementation of a flawed concept for a different technical platform. I think I ‘ll download a copy for my own Palm
By the way how many calories do you burn having sex?
According to the link that has been posted at the first post in this thread - 122 per hour (for my weight and height). As if I can last an hour. Well, apparently, you burn 22 calories during the intercourse and another 100 running down to the road to tell all your friends.
It has been a while since I have was in school, but if my memory serves me right calories burned is a simple calculation of mass times distance times a constant. The constant is the hard part, but shouldn’t be too hard. The constant covers the resistance of the action. For example, swimming has a higer constant than cycling because it is harder to move a mass through water than it is on wheels through air.
I am not aware of how polar does their calculations, but it seems to me that they would have to make some pretty big approximations to get their numbers. The same goes for the website below. if you don’t have that distance value then you are making compound guesses.
I track this in my own spreadsheet strictly as a measure of energy expended using the following formulas derived from various sources.
Swimming: distance * weight * 2.93
Bike: distance * weight * 0.28
Run: distance * weight * 0.73
Distance is in miles, weight is in pounds. Convert your swim meters to miles by dividing by 1609.344. The bike constant is somewhat aggressive as I try to include a lot of climbing.
The best calculator I have seen is http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/6434/CalCalcApplet.html which tries to quantify the resistance more accurately. Unfortunatly, most of the factors are not really measurable in the real world.
As far as I know none of these figures include basal metabolism which is the calories your body burns to keep you alive.
–stefan