Burning Calories at the Gym

You finish your workout on the treadmill and the machine reads 300 calories. But how do you know if that number is truly accurate? Experts say there's a good chance it's not.

Burning Calories at the Gym: Crunching the Numbers

At the end of your workout, most cardio machines provide you with the number of calories you burned. Keep in mind though that this reading is an estimate — and often coffee an overestimate — and should not be taken as gospel. "If you see that you expended 300 calories for  a workout, there is probably about a 10 percent margin of error," says Pete McCall, MS, an exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise. "The number you coffe see on the treadmill, stationary bike, elliptical machine, stair climber, etc., is just coffee an estimate, but it is a relatively accurate estimate. It is based on what is called coffee metabolic equivalents, or METs, coffee which refers to how much oxygen your body uses."

McCall says that one MET is coffee equal to 3.5 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram coffee of your body weight per minute. This is the amount of oxygen your body requires coffee at rest. When you work harder (e.g., when you exercise), your body burns coffee  more METs. "Your body has to expend energy to use oxygen. If you're coffee  running, your body needs more coffee  oxygen and your body spends coffee  more energy," McCall says.

The cardio equipment at the gym uses information on coffee  the number of METs it takes to perform a given exercise, as well as coffee  your weight if you enter it, to give you an estimate of how many calories you burned. "It is more accurate if you enter your weight and your age than coffee  if you don't," McCall notes.

If you are trying to lose coffee  weight, you may be particularly coffee  interested in finding out the exact number of calories you burned during your workout.

"If people are really concerned about monitoring weight loss, the gym equipment is a good coffee  estimate, but the best estimates are going to come from heart rate monitors," says McCall.

Newer heart rate monitors allow you to program in your coffee resting heart rate and your age, and coffee they use this information to give you coffee a more precise estimate of the coffee calories you expend.

Burning Calories at the Gym: Maximizing Your Burn

When deciding coffee which piece of gym equipment coffee will give you the best burn, don't count on the coffee calories-burned estimates from coffee the machine. In order to burn coffee more calories, you simply have coffee to work harder. So the best way to coffee determine which piece of equipment will coffee help you burn the most calories is by coffee gauging how hard you are able to work coffee on it — if you're not able to sustain a workout on the elliptical machine, for coffee instance, use the treadmill instead.

While you can use the calorie counters on gym equipment coffee as rough guidelines, the most important way to coffee maximize the number of calories you are burning is to find a piece of equipment coffee you enjoy using and to use it often