Do not trust your electronic devices for measuring burnt calories

Certainly, if you have been in a gym at least once in your life or you are an active user of fitness bracelets, you are aware of their function of counting burnt calories. Needless to say, many people appreciate this option available in such devices very much, as it seems to give them some feedback on their physical activity. This gave many physically active people one of the most popular believes about sport which is the myths that training electronic equipment is a trustworthy source of information about calories.

Sport equipment

Indeed, many pieces of sport equipment including smart watches seem to be so cutting-edge that it is difficult not to believe in the results of the measurements they are giving. It is even harder to do when the results are greater than the reality.

Unfortunately, experts are recommending not to trust the results of the measurements given by such devices. A great number of experiments have been conducted with a view to estimating what is happening in the reality when a person is physically active and whether the information given by sports equipment and smart bands is applicable to the real situation. It turns out, the information one can get with the help of such devices is offered with large approximation and absolutely should not be trusted.

Thus, the electronic sport equipment has an average tendency of increasing the amount of calories burnt during a workout by 19%. As you can imagine, this is quite a large number as actually it is almost the fifth part of all of the calories spent during your physical activity.

According to the experiments, the most trustworthy piece of equipment is an exercise bike with the average error in measurements of the calories pent equal to 7% whereas the results given by an elliptical machine should absolutely not be taken into consideration as their error is over 40%.

Fitness bracelets

When it comes to fitness bracelets, some of the parameters of a human body are really measured pretty accurately with their help. For instance, one can get a pretty realistic image when it comes to the heart rate. At the same time, the amount of calories burnt during a workout is something the devices hardly can measure properly. Among the great variety of models of such gadgets checked during the experiments, the least error was above 20% whereas the greatest was as large as 95%. In all of the cases, the problem was with estimating of the amount of calories burnt greater than it was in the reality.

What should you do with your electronic devices and equipment?

Definitely, you should keep on using these gadgets as they have a lot of great functions even when it comes to measurement, albeit it might not be absolutely precise. Yet, when it comes to the amount of calories you have burnt during your workout, there is absolutely no sense in relying on such devices as the errors they are making are too large even if you just want to get some approximate information about the efficiency of your physical activity.

The best way to deal with this problem is just to rely on your own feelings even though they might not be accurate as well. Still, it will be easier for you to feel whether you are exhausted during the workout or not and, in case you are trying to lose weight, you will also be able to notice the changes with your weight with time.

At the same time, the worst thing you can do is believing in inaccurate data about the calories spent during your workout and also believe in another myth about sport which tells people can eat more if they exercise. This can easily lead to overeating and instead of losing weight you can end up gaining weight even if you will have regular and intense workouts.

One thought on “Do not trust your electronic devices for measuring burnt calories

  1. Of course the data is not exact, but it does give a rough idea of the calories burned. There is no better alternative

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