Answers

• tfarabaugh Posts: 16,622
  Superusers

  November 2020 edited November 2020

  Calories burned will depend on the activity mode used. In running, cycling and swimming modes the watch is not using your HR to calculate caloric burn; it is using MET tables, which are tables of energy expenditure at various paces. They did it this way to enable users who are not using a HR monitor to get a caloric estimate (otherwise they would get a zero reading). Since MET tables are based on pace and distance, if you are hiking in run mode it will just think you are running really slow and will produce different results, but they may not be that far off. METs table is geometric meaning the slower your pace the faster the calorie burn falls, so if you are hiking really slow it may be inaccurate. For walking I just use standard number of calories per mile and ignore what the watch says.

  1
• AndiV Posts: 3 [Apprentice Seeker]

  November 2020

  So I know that it's using MET tables to calculate the calories, instead of HR.
  That's the reason I'm using 'Run' mode to take a walk, because I'm thinking that the calories count will be close to those in real case scenario.
  I'm wondering how much is the difference...maybe 10% more on a "Run" mode?
  If I had an HR I would use the 'Freestyle' mode for my walks...and had the correct calories count, but I don't have it.
  The reason I'm doing this is 'cos I want to have that saved and calculated in my daily activities in the webapp.
  Thanks for the reply

  0
• tfarabaugh Posts: 16,622
  Superusers

  November 2020 Accepted Answer

  AndiV wrote: »

  So I know that it's using MET tables to calculate the calories, instead of HR.
  That's the reason I'm using 'Run' mode to take a walk, because I'm thinking that the calories count will be close to those in real case scenario.
  I'm wondering how much is the difference...maybe 10% more on a "Run" mode?
  If I had an HR I would use the 'Freestyle' mode for my walks...and had the correct calories count, but I don't have it.
  The reason I'm doing this is 'cos I want to have that saved and calculated in my daily activities in the webapp.
  Thanks for the reply

  
  There is no way to know what the difference is. It will be different for everyone, the only way to do it would be to do a few with an HR strap and a few without and see what the difference is for you. You can always look up a calculator for walking/hiking online that will use your weight, height, gender, etc. and give you estimated calories per mile based on pace and use that as a comparison..

  6
• AndiV Posts: 3 [Apprentice Seeker]

  November 2020

  thanks! that's a very good tip!

  0