Elliptical Trainers And Weight Loss - Can You Believe The Calorie Counter?
Of all the questions about elliptical trainers and weight loss, the most common involves the calorie counter. Can you really trust what it is saying? How do you know it's right?
All elliptical trainers, like other cardio exercise machines, include a console that gives you several readouts during your workout. One of those is, of course, how many calories you burned during your workout. If you've ever been a member at a gym, then you have seen these for yourself... and you may have even noticed that different machines gave you a different reading! What's up with that?
It's important to keep in mind that most elliptical trainers (in fact, most cardio machines in general) come programmed with default statistics. They will give you average numbers based on average users. Low-end models simply base your calories burned on an average person's calorie burn... and that average person may or may not resemble you at all!
Better elliptical machines let you input your personal data, such as your age, height and weight. From there, machines may do two different modes of calculating.
The first is simply using your current weight against a standard value called a MET value. MET stands for metabolic equivalent. MET is a measure of how many calories people of certain weights tend to burn while they are sleeping. These are standards that have been set through testing... for example, the average 130 lb person tends to burn 60 calories an hour during their sleeping period. In this case, your elliptical estimates your calories burned based on your weight by using standard MET values of calories burned at various intensities of exercise.
Other machines will use the data you have inputted to calculate your BMI, or basal metabolic rate. Then, it multiplies your BMI by your MET and come up with an estimation of how many calories you are burning in an hour.
So, while you can get a basic idea of how much you've burned off during a workout, it is never going to be anything more than an estimation. The best approach, then, is to use the calories burned as a general guideline. Don't use your readout to plan your meal intake, for example.
Elliptical trainers and weight loss make great partners, and you can absolutely lose weight and get fit using an elliptical. Just don't take what your calorie readout says as the holy grail... understand that it is a guideline, and that for lasting weight loss you need to combine diet along with your workouts.
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