coe9257 wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2021, 6:43 pm
I just setup my Concept2 today and saw the calorie calculator. I googled how to use it and have been reading that it is not accurate!
If the calculator is not accurate what distance (or whatever else) do I need to be doing to burn 1,000 calories a day? That is my goal. Thank you in advance!
Excellent plan. You will lose a ton of fat rowing. It takes about 6 weeks to start to kick in. Some fat will get converted to lean muscle, some will disappear. Use the mirror test as much as the scale -- scale won't catch the conversion from fat to lean muscle.
( tl;dr answer to " what distance (or whatever else) do I need to be doing to burn 1,000 calories a day?" --> use 1000 calories from the monitor. It'll be very close. But do far less than that the first few weeks to get your body in shape so you don't get sore. Your butt, back, arms and hands will thank you.)
As a measurement device, the concept2 calorie counter is very accurate. It's the conversion to effective calories that's got problems. Same for all devices. The calorie count displayed includes both your output (very accurately measurable by the PM5 on your erg) and your exercise efficiently (the pm5 has to guess at this). Rowing you burn 400-500 Food Calories for every 100 Calories of measured output. The Concept2 PM5 displays their guess as to how many food calories you burned to get the output you delivered. So do all exercise bikes, etc.
None of the work done converted to food calorie algorithms are totally accurate because
1. As you get used to the exercise your body gets more efficient. Net for you, as you are just starting, you will burn more than it says. Later you will burn less.
2. Exercise changes your appetite. (1) you may eat less because you don't feel as much like eating. Especially true (in mice) if you have been sedentary. (2) you may eat more because you know you worked out and you earned it. So you might burn an additional 1000 calories a week rowing and lose a pound (1 pound = 3500 calories) or gain a pound.
3. Exercise changes your metabolism. Intense exercise gets you the "afterburn" effect where you have a higher heart rate for a while after the exercise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_po ... onsumption All exercise changes your body composition enough to change the resting calories you burn. The more muscles mass you have, the more you burn even while resting. So you might burn 300 calories during your workout and later burn another 100 or so just sitting
The calculator ref'ed in the post above above will adjust the guess on food calories based using your weight. You can also just tell Ergdata to display the weight adjusts calories (and expected split times). Details here:
https://www.concept2.com/service/softwa ... sted-score
Aside, 1000 calories is a long exercise session, likely over an hour. So also look at the posts on the forum talking about pads for the rower seat. It takes weeks/months for your seat to be comfortable for an hour plus. Pads (towels, bubblewrap, etc.) on the seat can help while you get used to the motion.
Also read this, it says what I'm trying to say better:
https://www.concept2.com.au/news/counting-calories-0