Calories
i just ran across an interesting Runners World article that I thought others might enjoy on the subject of calories burned while running.
One of the main reasons I run is weight control, and this article discusses the main ingredients in weight control, namely calorie burning.
The most interesting calculation is the burn rate per mile for most folks, which is (for gross calorie burn) .75 * weight.
For me that works out to
177 * .75 = 132.75
That is a little more conservative that the Garmin calculates it. I guess I need to gain some weight so that I can burn more calories.
I think every machine/device I have ever used tends to over-calculate the number of calories I burn. (I suspect consumers like machines that give higher numbers for calories burned so they feel better even if they aren’t accurate.) I think the NCB fomula is also a good thing to keep in mind, especially for people who spend a lot of their time exercising at a low intensity where NCB might be a lot less than GCB.
I put up Christmas lights on my house yesterday. Here’s the formula: (weight * .25) * (number of burned out bulbs) / times fell off ladder = number of sore muscles next morning. But hey, the house looks charming.
Bill,
I agree. I am guessing no one wants to see how hard they had to work to get rid of that order of french fries.
I was on a stationary bike the other day, and I am not sure if it was set accurately or not, but it was REALLY hard to get it to give up the calories. I rode that thing for over an hour with my HR at 130ish and it only gave me a 500 calorie count.
On the upside…it did make me pedal for over an hour at a decent rate :)
Brent, I think your math skillz are superior and would like to invite you to become the resident math consultant for nathanpowell.org.