I know calorie counters on exercise machines are pretty inaccurate, with one estimate that they can be off by 25-30 percent. Even after inputting my actual weight on the treadmills at the gym I go to, I figure the machines overestimate by about 2 calories/minute.
Tonight, however, I met the most hilariously inaccurate counter I've ever seen. It was on a Star Trac stationary bicycle, which claimed that I somehow burned 331 calories in just 20 minutes.
Ha ha ha ha!!
That would mean that an hour of pedaling would be the same in terms of calorie burn as about an hour and a half of running for me, when the effort scale runs in the other direction. A much more realistic estimate for 20 minutes on the stationary cycle would be something like 130-150 calories burned.Granted, I did have the resistance setting up to level 10 (out of 20), but even so, I can't fathom how this machine could've been so wrong.
Now, it doesn't matter to me because I track calories as a matter of habit, not because I'm looking to lose weight; and I can correct the inaccuracy for my own tracking. But imagine the calorie counter who is trying to lose weight and is lulled into a sense of complacency....
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