When I got back to using MFP, I initially lost about 5 lbs in 2 1/2 weeks, then plateaued. After reading a couple threads on the forum, I decided to get a heart rate monitor to get a better sense of how many calories I was really burning. I was careful to keep my heart rate in the optimum aerobic range and I was shocked to find out that MFP was overestimating calories burned by over 400 calories. Right there is the reason for the stall! I would like to know how you get the number of calories burned for each exercise and how I can go about entering the right number of calories so I can track better.

I check MFP against http://www.calories-calculator.net/Calories_Burned_By_Heart_Rate.html & then average both figures. MFP seems to be in line with the cal calcuator. (30 - 50 cals) Maybe it's your HRM?

if you've got a calorie number from a HRM or machine that you would prefer to use over the MFP numbers you can do so.. enter the duration of your activity, MFP will present the calorie burn they calculate using their formula which involves weight and if you have a different number you can change what they calculate to the burn from your machine / HRM/ other source.

I found MFP overestimated quite a bit as well. I've started using my HRM, which I find very accurate.

For some it over estimates, for some it underestimates, for me it always seems close to what my HRM reports.

I too found this to be puzzling ???-I just record what my treadmill or bike says-which is always lower than MFP-I figure that whatever i"m burning is better than doing nothing!

I find that MFP increases the calories burned as well BUT not by 400. I have a HRM and MFP usually is only different by increasing it by about 30-50. Are you sure it's not your HRM??? 400 seems like a lot