Don't believe the numbers

As I've mentioned before, I'm trying to keep to a very regular workout routine and try to workout every day. I don't go at top intensisty every workout (I try to do 2-3 days at top effort) and I try to do a "rest day" workout: just something to be sure I'm moving. I've been using the Yourself!Fitness, even on my rest days (maybe only a 15 minute workout), but I decided yesterday to try something else.

I rode the stationary bike for 10 miles at a moderate rate (took me a little less than 40 minutes to ride 10 miles). According to the calorie count on the machine I burned over 500 calories. There's no way in hell that's what I burned. I didn't even build a sweat. It's no wonder that when I was doing that as my main form of exercise I wasn't losing the weight: I was using that as a guideline to how many calories I burned and it's way off.

One of the things I asked for Christmas is the Polar A5 heart rate monitor which is also supposed to track calories burned during a workout. Since I try to do a calorie in vs. calorie out formula to lose weight, I need an accurate calories burned.

All I know is that 30 minutes working with Maya at my max. heart rate only burns about 150 calories, there's no way that I burned 500 on a stationary bike going at a very moderate rate.