The amount of oxygen I exhale is the true measure of my energy or caloric expenditure. I put on a snorkel-like apparatus hooked up to a computer that analyzes my breathing. My friend, Professor Matt Lee performs an indirect calorimetry test on me to accurately measure how many calories I burn and compare the results to the numbers from the fitness trackers. The variance in steps and distance has me concerned, so I head over to the San Francisco State University Kinesiology Lab. So if you base your food intake on the amount of calories an exercise tracker says you burned, you want that caloric number to be as accurate as possible.Įxperiment #2 - Testing Calorie Estimates ![]() Weight loss happens when you eat fewer calories than you burn. You moved more than yesterday by taking the stairs, going for a walk on your lunch break and playing with the kids – good for you!īut the problem is that these devices also display of how many calories they estimate you burn over the entire day. So the exactness of the measures may not be critical. Then, armed with that awareness, they motivate you to move more. ![]() These devices are meant as relative trackers of motion – ways to quantify how much you move. At the low end, the BodyMedia says I took 3659 steps, and at the high end the Jawbone UP thinks I took nearly 300 more steps at 3947. And what really surprises me is not the variance in distance (they may all estimate my stride length differently and have slightly different distance algorithms) but it’s the variance in the step counts, which I imagined as a fairly standardized pedometer-like measure of movement.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |