How do calorie meters work?

It's easy to jump on an exercise machine and watch the calorie meter -- but how accurate are these meters? Learn more about calorie meters in this HowStuffWorks podcast

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff works dot com
where smart Happens. Hi, I'm Marshall Brain. Have you ever
been to the gym and used a piece of equipment
that tells you the number of calories that you've burned?
The New York Times ran a story this week explaining

(00:23):
how bad these calorie estimates really are. Intuitively, we know
that these estimates are often wrong. Here's how we know that.
It's easy to jump on a ster machine and have
it tell you that you've burned a thousand calories in
half an hour. But here is the comparison you have
to keep in mind. Imagine that you go out running
and you run ten miles in one hour. That is

(00:45):
ten six minute miles. Most people couldn't even do it.
If you could do it, imagine how you would feel
that ten mile run is, roughly speaking, when thousand calories burned.
You would have to feel that bad to burn a
thousand calories. And even that is a rough estimate because

(01:06):
it changes wildly depending on how much you weigh, how
old you are, and things like that. So you have
three things that are corrupting the meters on most exercise equipment. First,
people vary wildly in size, shape, and condition. Second, people
can do things that make exercise easier. For example, they
can hold onto the rails on a ste machine and

(01:28):
cut the number of calories burned in half. Third, manufacturers
seem to be overly optimistic because it makes their customers
feel good. Add this all together and you can get
some really bad calorie estimates. Be sure to check out
our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and

(01:50):
perplexing possibilities of tomorrow the house Stuff Works. I Find
app has a arry down at it today on iTunes