to think surely I must have burnt more calories than this?

[DrHarleenFrancesQuinzel]

I got a fitbit HR Charge for Christmas.

I do Metafit on a saturday morning. Today was my third week in a row wearing my fitbit. Ive not burned over 200 calories in any week. Today I only burned 151 calories. I dont believe that.

For anyone who is not sure, metafit is a high intense exercise class that lasts for 30 mins inc warm up/cool down. Today we did 25 secs squat jumps, 10 secs rest, 25 secs up and downs (lying on the floor and jumping up again) 10 secs rest, 25 secs lunge jumps. Repeated 3 times before the high knees finisher. That was round one. There were 3 rounds in total with different exercises in each one and finally finished by doing the 3 finishers for 30 secs each back to back. It certainly gets you out of breath and hot & sweaty.

Surely I would have burned more than 150 calories. Instead I could have gone to Parkrun and exercised at half the intensity for an extra 5 minutes and burned twice as many calories.

Is this right?

I burn that many calories on a bike for 30 minutes.

The idea behind HIIT like this is that it boosts your metabolism and fat burning in the hours after the actual exercise. So don't get too hung up on the actual calorie burn of the class.

If the 30 minutes includes warm up and cool down, that means about 20 minutes of actual exercise. If a third of that was rest time, that's about 7 minutes of rest - so you did around 13 minutes of exercise? If your starting weight is average or low, I think around 151 calories is probably what I'd expect.

I burn about 250 in 25 mins of exercise so that sounds about right to me too

I'd say that's right. I burn 350ish for an hours Zumba so half an hours hiit is probably about right (it's actually closer to 20mins with warm up/down)

But like others said metafit works on metabolism. I've never been as fit and toned as I was doing hiit regularly.

Yep provably right. People drastically overestimate the calorie burn particularly from cardio based exercise. However as someone else said hit should improve longer term calorie burn.

Is it set to your weight etc?

Sounds about right, yeah.
I do think lots of people overestimate how many calories they burn when exercising.

Yes its set to my weight. Im overweight, but not drastically so. A loss of a stone would see me in the normal range.

Im not trying to lose weight as such (only cos Im aware its what you eat and I like naughty foods too much) just to get fitter.

I would say its about 22-23 mins hard work and a couple mins warm up and cool down at each side.

On Thursday I spent 36 mins in the gym on the bike and treadmill. I burned 363 calories this time and didn't work nearly as hard. So an extra 15 mins and burning well over twice as many calories.

lots of people overestimate how many calories they burn when exercising

I agree and have always tried to under-estimate. I was obviously wrong. Oh well. Live and learn I suppose.

Thanks for the responses. Now I wont feel too bad for choosing Parkrun over metafit some weeks. Due to work and family commitments I can only make the Saturday morning metafit class which clashes with Parkrun.

Exercise doesn't actually burn all that many calories. That's pretty much the reason behind the obesity crisis - people who move very little but can easily pack away 300 cals in a blueberry muffin, another 250 on a latte and 300 from the office biscuit tin. Couple that with 0 walking (drive to work, sedentary job, drive home) means a calorie surplus each day. A short dose of exercise can shave off a couple of hundred, but it's easier to think in terms of not eating the excess in the first place. That isn't to say HIIT doesn't have its benefits, but a massive calorie burn isn't one of them. Same with yoga, for example.

Walking's a good burner, though, because you can do a lot of it. I don't drive, cover about 11km a day, daily calorie burn around 2100 from just walking and existing.

I see you're thinking of ditching Metafit - but why? Calorie burn isn't the only reason to do exercise. I weightlift. Again, it's only a couple of hundred burned but I don't do it for that. I do it for the pleasure and the effects it has on my strength and appearance. Plenty of active things are worth doing for reasons other than calorie burn. Like I say, easier not to eat that extra 300 cals than it is to seek ways of burning it off.

Sounds about right tbh.

I have a heart rate monitor which also measures calories and I found for metafit I generally burn around 150-200 cals per session.

I personally think it's a bit overrated as being high intensity.
I find my heart rate maxes around 140 but usually is around 120-130 so I'm certainly not working flat out ( although it feels that way). As a comparison when I'm with my p/t doing a mostly weight based routine my heart rate is around 140 and up to about 156 for the high intensity bits as it's genuinely 20s hard as you can go, or for parkrun 5k I can go up to 171 for last k.

Sorry I know you asked about calories burnt but high heart rate seems to coincide with that.

I think it's still worth doing as a class along with other exercise as you are doing toning and strengthening stuff such as press ups and squats. Trouble with going on your own on the bike or treadmill is there is a tendency just to coast and not work hard, which means it will a) take you longer to see any improvements and b) means you'll have to spend longer on your work out.

I guess it depends what you mean when you say you're trying to get fitter. Do you want to lose body fat, lose weight, be able to run for a bus, have specific fitness to do a cycle ride or just look better. I'm guessing you'll say all of the above so 3 or more exercise sessions where you are pushing yourself will help with that.

Ah just clashed with your update.

Given the choice I'd say parkrun is better than metafit. I find that I genuinely push myself hard on parkrun as don't want to be last and want a better time than the week before, plus I enjoy it more.

Mind you I'm fat so you may want to ignore my advice.

Problem with any other classes is that they are on inconvenient times for me. I need to be at home for the DCs by 6 so have to go straight from work mid week (I finish at half 4 and go to a gym round the corner) unless I go back out again at 8PM. I either do the cross trainer or the treadmill. The bike is more of a warm up to get my heart pumping.

Im not thinking about ditching metafit, just some weeks I will do Parkrun instead.

I dont really know what I mean by trying to get fitter to be honest. I meant I dont go to the gym to lose weight. I just want to be fit. Most probably be to look better and be healthier and tone up.

It sounds right to me.

On a day when I do nothing I burn around 1500 Kcals. That's a day where I am pottering around the house.

On a day I train I burn 2400 ish. My training includes a 15 min run and 35 mins kickboxing or weights. I actually only burn around 250-360 calls in the actual training session but seem to burn more over the next few hours.

I wouldn't quit based on the fact that you aren't burning that much during the class. It's meant to help you burn more in the hours after.

That said if you take out the time for warming up, cooling down and rest periods in between the high intensity bits, you won't be moving for that much of it.

I ran today for 20 mins and burned 131 calories

My fitbit tracked my walking and upstairs/downstairs moving, and less so any 'exercise' like jumping and shit.

Maybe it's that.

Im not quitting metafit, I was just surprised at how little calories it burned. For me its a lot harder work than Parkrun and those rest periods are 10 secs, 15 secs, 25 secs most. Hardly time to get my heart rate down much.

According to my history over the past couple of weeks or so I burn 2100 cals on doing nothing days (Sundays), 2200 on work and not gym days and 2300-2600 on work and gym days. Last sat I burned 2305 calories, Thursday I burned 2568 calories and I did 36 mins in the gym at a medium intensity rate.

The heart rate monitors on Fitbits don't work very well so it probably isn't correctly calculating your calorie use.

I think the fitbit is accurate in calories if it is an hr one. I burn about the same as you during a fat burn class, similar to meta fit. So it does seem that that number is right.
It is disappointing when you feel you have worked really hard and not burnt many calories! But I think it's good to do a mix of stuff.

Zumba seems to burn the most - up to 440 in an hour.

The fitbit has really taught me why I haven't been losing weight! I was overestimating how many calories I burnt.

Something that interests me is if it is an indicator of metabolism at all? I think my metabolism has changed due to perimenopause. I have put on over 2 stone whilst eating the same as usual and exercising the same as usual. Clearly I am burning fewer calories though or else I wouldn't have put on weight.

My Fitbit tells me that to burn 2180 calories I need to do an hour work out PLUS walk 12000 steps! So it takes a really active day to burn a pretty normal amount of calories!

It sounds about right.

Unless you're doing serious excercise, you're better off not looking at excercise calories much. Weight loss is 80% diet (unless your excercising a serious amount)

The benefit of the excercise is in increased fitness, strength, muscle mass etc.

If you want to burn off serious calories excercising then get out into the hills and go for an all day walk. :)

Research shows that peoples metabolisms don't vary that much. If you add a couple of kg lean muscle it'll more than compensate for any slowdown due to age.

Sounds about right to me, I burn about 600 calories in a 60min front crawl swim at a fast pace.

You would burn some calories anyway just being there, even if you were in bed so I reckon that's right, a few extra for jumping around really. Running 10km only burns about 600 calories apparently (one calorie per kilo per kilometre) for an average woman so 30 min of something like that isn't really that intensive.
As pp said, you need your heart rate up for an extended period of time to get much done on calories. That's why hill walking is good.

I'm confused. Does fitbit measure ALL calories you use during the day or just the ones you burn by moving about?