When a fitness editor paired an Apple Watch Series 8 with a Garmin Epix Pro for a 300-calorie workout, I was intrigued, but not surprised, by the results. Neither fell short of the goal of Magic 300.
It’s a common theme. When fitness influencers and personal trainers advertise high-calorie-burning workouts and we do them too, even the best fitness trackers on the market produce vastly different results from each other. and training target.
To test it out for myself, I hit play on a 500 calorie HIIT workout on YouTube to see how many “actual” calories I burned on my Apple Watch Series 7 and Oura Ring 3rd Gen. Here’s what happened and why you should focus on other workouts. goal instead.
How to calculate calories burned
There are several ways to calculate calories burned during a workout, but it’s difficult to get an accurate reading. Here’s a quick recap, but to get you even deeper, the fitness editor wears an Apple Watch Series 8 and his Garmin Epix Pro for his 300-calorie workout, revealing everything you need to know. Did.
- calorie calculator use MET value graph It estimates the amount of energy a person expends during each type of training, but these are fully standardized for easy comparison.
- fitness tracker and best running watch Track your calorie burn by looking at personal information you enter (age and weight, etc.), type of workout, and factors like heart rate and oxygen consumption. Next, estimate your maximum oxygen uptake (VO2 max) and expected energy expenditure.
- chest strap heart rate monitor See the effort an individual puts into a workout based on their heart rate and measure how many calories they can burn. These tend to be more accurate than fitness trackers, but most devices are still only estimates.
So who do we believe?
Ideally, you know your basal metabolic rate (BMR), the calories your body needs to get you through the day, and your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE), as it’s hard to trust your device’s performance. is needed. Refers to the number of calories you consume per day to determine your calorie burn potential.
you can do the math and Calculate BMR and TDEEHowever, we recommend going to a doctor or sports clinic to get accurate BMR and lean body mass measurements. These labs can also connect to various machines to measure your max VO2 and max heart rate.
I just did a 500 calorie HIIT workout. According to my fitness tracker, my calories burned are:
I put on my Apple Watch Series 7 for this 500 Calorie 20 Minute Cardio HIIT Workout It has over 4 million views on YouTube.
My FiiT heart rate monitor couldn’t sync with this workout, so I used the Oura ring to compare.
- Aura ring 3rd generation: 180 calories burned, average heart rate undetectable
- apple watch series 7: Calories burned 74 calories, average heart rate 92 bpm
Oura ring stopped tracking heart rate data during workouts (this isn’t the first time we’ve had issues recording heart rate data with Oura). So, it’s safe to assume that the 180 calories burned isn’t accurate. Oura uses the MET, which measures energy expenditure and intensity of various physical activities, to calculate his daily energy expenditure, which has so far been found to be significantly off. It seems to be endorsed by online users.
In both cases, my calorie burn fell far short of the 500-calorie goal for this workout, and my heart rate rarely exceeded 100 for most of the 20-minute class. Also, I didn’t break a sweat and was marking my RPE (percentage of perceived exertion, a common method personal trainers rate their clients’ strength) at around 3/10.
Everyone’s calorie burn is different, and some people find this workout more challenging than others, but as a general rule of thumb, metabolic conditioning and HIIT workouts generally burn more calories. However, in this 20-minute session he believes that the 500-calorie number is never achievable and that this figure was picked up from scratch.
Still, I was shocked to see how far my total calorie expenditure was.
Rest periods and switching between high and low intensity forces your body to work harder, improve endurance, and activate a process called EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption). This means you burn calories after your workout.
Find out how to create a Metcon workout that will skyrocket your heart rate and increase your chances of burning calories. We also recommend that you use the process of NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) to brush up on your calorie consumption by switching your daily routine.
However, the best advice I can give is to use your calories burned as an estimate of your daily energy expenditure and use it for other goals: building strength, increasing muscle mass (a more active metabolism), And most importantly, focus your attention on feeling good during and after your workout.
More from Tom’s Guide
If your goal is to lose weight, you need a calorie deficit, burning more calories than you take in. Read about it below.
