Cardiovascular activity, also known as "cardio" activity, is a general term for any activity that improves your cardiovascular conditioning. These activities also burn calories at a high rate, and are a common part of a sensible weight loss plan. You can calculate the calories you burn during cardio activity from your heart rate.
Weight Loss
Your calorie deficit is the difference between the number of calories you burn and the number of calories you consume. You can use your calorie deficit to predict your weight loss rate. A pound of fat contains approximately 3,500 calories, so a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories per week results in a loss of 1 lb. per week.
Heart Rate
Your heart rate bears the closest relationship with your calorie expenditure rate when your heart rate is between 90 and 150 beats per minute. It's therefore important that you keep your heart rate within this range while performing cardio activity. This may require you to adjust the intensity of your cardio activity.
Data
An accurate calculation of your calorie expenditure rate while performing cardio activity depends on several specific factors. The most important of these is your average heart rate and the duration the cardio activity. Other important factors for calculating your calorie expenditure rate include your gender, age and weight.
Formulas
The Journal of Sport Sciences provides calorie expenditure formulas for men and women. The specific formula for men is Calories = [(Age x 0.2017) -- (Weight x 0.09036) + (Heart Rate x 0.6309) -- 55.0969] x Time / 4.184. The specific formula for women is: Calories = [(Age x 0.074) -- (Weight x 0.05741) + (Heart Rate x 0.4472) -- 20.4022] x Time / 4.184. Both of these formulas require your age in years, your weight in pounds and the duration of the cardio activity in minutes.
Estimates
The Mayo Clinic provides estimates on calorie expenditures for a variety of cardio activities. For example, running at 8mph for one hour burns 986 calories if you weigh 160 lb. You'll burn 1,229 calories if you weigh 200 lb. and 1,472 calories if you weigh 240 lb.
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