# diff between cal & kCal



## xroads (6 Sep 2007)

My bike computer displays both. I assumed 1 kCal was =1000cal.
However the computer only display cal as an instantaneous value (eg stop pedalling and it drops to zero).
For my 13 mile commute in 50 mins it shows a cumulative 600kCal. My weight is 70kg (entered into computer). Does this sound reasonable or exaggerated?
Whats the difference between the two?


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## stephec (6 Sep 2007)

Your figures sound similar to mine. I hope someone can answer this as I was thinking of starting of a thread on this myself.


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## yenrod (6 Sep 2007)

Xroads what computer you using ??


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## skwerl (6 Sep 2007)

sounds like kCal is your total for the session whereas the cal value is the calories you're burning in real-time, kind of like a power output in watts. That's why it displays 0 when you stop pedalling.

The reason that one's in calories (rather tahn kcal) is because the real-time value is going to be small, so instead of displaying 0.06 kcal they display 60 cal. The total ride energy value is quoted in kcal because a calorie is a tiny amount of energy so you'd end up with a value of 2,000,000 after a 3 hour ride


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## domtyler (6 Sep 2007)

Rtfm


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## stephec (6 Sep 2007)

If you read various books they give average values for calories burnt for different types of exercise, eg. walking 250 cals per hour, cycling 300 cals, and so on.

When I look at my HRM and it tells me I have used 1160kcals over an hour and a half of cycling how does that kcal figure relate to actual calories burnt.

In other words, how many pints have I burnt off?


Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.


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## xroads (6 Sep 2007)

Mines is a bikemate from Aldi - best bike computer Ive come across.
RTFM is effin useless.
Instantaneous value in calories, cumulated gives total kCal makes sense.
Thanks


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## skwerl (7 Sep 2007)

stephec said:


> If you read various books they give average values for calories burnt for different types of exercise, eg. walking 250 cals per hour, cycling 300 cals, and so on.
> 
> When I look at my HRM and it tells me I have used 1160kcals over an hour and a half of cycling how does that kcal figure relate to actual calories burnt.
> 
> ...



about 4 or 5 pints. depends what you drink though


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## Pottsy (7 Sep 2007)

You're right, 1 Kcal = 1000 cal.

However in common use many people refer to cals when they actually mean kcals, so there's often some confusion.


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## Cheddar George (7 Sep 2007)

Quite right Pottsy. This is one of my pet hates, i mean you wouldn't enter a 100 kilometre audax event only to turn up and ride round the block for 100 metres !!!!

The UK department of health recommends an average of 2550 calories a day for a bloke. Well i've just eaten a Tunnocks caramel wafer (very nice) at 140Kcal , is this supposed to keep me going until the end of October ?????


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## andrew_s (9 Sep 2007)

You can generally assume that "calorie" in the context of food and diet means Kcal.
Thus, if you eat nothing else, you are allowed 18 Tunnocks caramel wafers per day, much more reasonable.


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