Online Calorie Calculators Accuracy
If you are going to plan out and measure your diet and activities in terms of calories burnt, there is a good chance you have come across a “calories burnt” online calculator.
The premise is simple – you put in your age, your weight and the duration of the activity you will be doing, and it tells you how many calories you have burnt. Sounds like a great tool, but are they really that accurate? Are they accurate enough to use in your calculations?
The calculators are accurate to a certain degree. They are the easiest way to get an estimate of how many calories you have burned, but you must take into account a few things.
1) Most calculators include your BMR number in the total calories burnt. For example, if you went jogging for 1 hour, it may state that you burnt 800 calories. But, included in that number is your BMR for the hour, which may be up to 200 calories. So, when someone thinks they have burnt an extra 800 calories on top of their BMR, they have actually only burnt 600. This may not seem like a lot, but it adds up over time.
2) Every person will burn a different amount of calories doing the same activity. Take 2 people, for example. Both weigh 180 pounds and are the same age. One runs 10 miles per day and the other has never run before. If both complete 10 miles, who do you think will burn more calories? It won’t be equal, will it?
The ”calories burnt” calculators are very useful tools if you keep in mind the above caveats. They are accurate enough for most dieters and give a pretty good estimate of the actual amount of calories burnt!
Have you used an online calorie calculator? What is your opinion on them? Please leave a comment below…
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Thank you for visiting! Weight Loss and Training is a health blog which features all the best weight loss tips that I have learned over my 20 years of training. My background includes a degree in Kinesiology from the world renown Simon Fraser University, certification in nutritional sciences from UBC, and Personal Trainer Specialist certification from Can Fit Pro.