Strength for Her

Have you ever wondered how many calories you’ve burned on the elliptical trainer or while mountain biking?

In past articles, we’ve gained a better understanding of our how many calories our body needs and how to figure out how many we’re eating (see Estimating Daily Calorie Needs, How to Count Calories, Calorie Calculator). We’ve also learned to figure out how many calories our body burns at rest just to keep it functioning by calculating our BMR, or Basal Metabolic Rate.

 In addition to our BMR, our body burns calories by all of our physical activity and exercise. The more you move, the more calories you burn. It can be difficult to approximate exactly how many calories we burn during exercise. Furthermore, it varies widely from person to person due to body composition, weight, gender, and metabolism. Because of this, the ‘calories burned’ displays on the cardio machines at the gym may be far from accurate. Although it’s impossible to find an exact number, the chart below will give you a general idea of how many calories certain activities burn. The numbers shown are for 60 minutes of exercise, so adjust according to how much you’ve done.

The chart belows shows a few weight ranges. Remember, the heavier you are, the more calories you burn. I found a cool website that approximates calories burned with exercise. You search for a specific exercise or activity, enter your weight and it returns an estimation of calories burned. To try it out, click here.

This gives us a basic idea of which movements and activities burn the most calories, and approximately how much energy they burn. It can be surprising at first - it takes a lot of work to burn off a piece of cheesecake!