How to track Blogilates and your calories burned

Options
gerryleanne92
gerryleanne92 Posts: 12 Member
edited February 2015 in Fitness and Exercise
Hello!
I'm assuming if you've clicked this thread you know who Cassey Ho is and know all about Blogilates. If not, she's a pilates instructor on YouTube who posts really hard hitting workout videos and also provides a workout calendar than runs every day of the year, with a list of her workouts to complete each individual day. It's super varied, super fun, and super hard work!

Since getting My Fitness Pal and wanting to start tracking things, I realised I had no idea how many calories I'm burning when doing Cassey's videos every day, and I really wanted to enter it on here to keep everything logged as well as possible. The more I Googled the more I found other people asking the same question, but no real answers...
But I believe I have found a way! It's a little complicated sounding at first, but it works :)

How to do it:

First make sure your profile is correct, your age, height, weight etc. So that My Fitness Pal will get this right.

Now... You can list workouts as cardio or strength on here, but unless what you're doing is already in the database, you're left a little lost. Listing as cardio asks you for the time spent on working out, and asks you to manually put in your calories burned. Whilst listing as strength just asks you for the number of sets, reps per set, and weights used - Strength doesn't track calories. Since I like to track Cassie's videos in terms of time spent rather than reps of the moves, I want to track them as Cardio, which means I also get to track calories!

So after a little bit of Googling I found an article on Cassey's website written by herself, saying that in apps such as this it's good to log pilates as "Calisthenics" - Which IS on the database here, yay!
Cassie says to log her harder pilates videos as 'Calisthenics vigorous', the intermediate pilates videos as 'Calisthenics light', her cardio as 'Aerobics', and her HIIT videos also as 'Calisthenics vigorous'.

So, you can stop at that point, and just list the videos under what they're most similar to of the above categories. My Fitness Pal will work out the calories for you and voila, your calories burned in your Blogilates Workout!

Though for myself, I wanted my workouts to show as "Blogilates - Extreme Abs" and so on, rather than just the generalised "Calisthenics vigorous". So I found a way of being able to enter them in as their video titles and still have the burned calories there.
It seems like tedious process, but realistically it only took me ten minutes:
First I selected "Calisthenics Vigorous" under cardio, and in the time spent box, I put "1" to see how many calories it told me 1 minute would burn. I noted that down in my phone's notepad as "1 min = 6 cal" (in my case), and then did the same from 2 all the way though to 10, and noted them all down. I then did the same for calisthenics light and aerobics, so that now in my phone's notes I have a little table of how many minutes burn how many calories for each type of workout. (I only noted 1 to 10 minutes for each, if they're any longer I simply use the other numbers to figure it out myself. 12 minutes = 10 minutes + 2 minutes)

So now when I complete one of Cassey's videos, "Quick Ab Workout" for example, I simply select Exercise > Cardiovascular > Add New. Then I type in what I'd like to name the workout, "Blogilates - Quick Ab Workout" then input the time spent from the video (remember to log the time actually working out, not just the video length), then when it comes to calories I simply flip over to my notepad, check which category is fits under, 'Calisthenics vigorous' I thought for this one since it killed me, and then input the amount of calories burned for that amount of time!
So now my diary says "Blogilates - Quick Ab Workout", 3 minutes, 19 calories, and from now on when I complete that video again, that entry will be saved in my exercises and within one click it's entered again! (You only need to add it and it's calories the first time you do it) It may seem a long process at first, but if you're completing the Blogilates monthly calendars it'll make things much easier and much more specific and organised in your diary on here in the long run!

Though I understand this should be taken with a pinch of salt since the tracker on here shouldn't be taken for gospel and the calories are only estimates. But I still find this better than not tracking my Blogilates at all, and I like having my actual workout names listed in my diary properly!


So, I hope this made sense to those who were wondering! Feel free to link this thread to anybody else who has been looking for just the same thing, when I Googled to try and find an answer to the calories burned I found so many other people who were trying to find out but no real answers!

Now to finish recovering from such a killer Day 3 of the February calendar! Ouch :tired_face: xo

Replies

  • AskTracyAnnK28
    AskTracyAnnK28 Posts: 2,817 Member
    Options
    Someone was just telling me about Cassey yesterday...I'm going to check this out tonight after work!
  • MyceDjao
    MyceDjao Posts: 1 Member
    Options
    That is great! Thank you so much for this. Going to do this this afternoon after I workout
  • AskTracyAnnK28
    AskTracyAnnK28 Posts: 2,817 Member
    Options
    There's actually a Blogilates app and it's totally free!! All the videos are on there :)
  • jmelissa419
    jmelissa419 Posts: 6 Member
    Options
    This is perfect! I am so glad you figured it out for us. I have been curious for quite some time as to how I can track my blogilates in my fitness pal! This was great. :)
  • VeeBanks
    VeeBanks Posts: 9 Member
    Options
    This is such a perfect post :) Just used your method and made a note in my phone, it'll be so much more satisfying entering workouts now!
  • Dragn77
    Dragn77 Posts: 810 Member
    Options
    I just log it as Pilates since thats an option on here.

    Just got myself an HRM though, so Ill be able to put in my actual calorie burn.. but yeah, I just keep it simple and use the Pilates exercise to log it.

    Adore Cassey btw...she is literally the only person I can work out to who doesnt annoy the heck out of me. I love how she tells stories and tells all these corny jokes that make me smile and forget for a moment how much shes hurting me LoL!
  • yyipe
    yyipe Posts: 1 Member
    Options
    This is a great post (y) :) But I am not sure whether the Blogilates 5 Minute Timer Series is 'Calisthenics vigorous' or 'Calisthenics light?
  • SianBeatrice
    SianBeatrice Posts: 4 Member
    Options
    Thank you! I'm so grateful for this! I love Blogilates and Cassey :)
  • obviouslyme03
    obviouslyme03 Posts: 1 Member
    Options
    This was so incredibly helpful today! Thanks for laying out your technique. =)
  • mollyanne49
    mollyanne49 Posts: 1 Member
    Options
    Thank you so much for taking the time to work this out! I have been entering it as 'pilates' which is listed under Cardio. On the lighter days, the amount of calories burned makes sense, but not when I'm doing a bunch of HIIT videos! This was super helpful to know what to be logging as!
  • OMP33
    OMP33 Posts: 308 Member
    Options
    Or get a heart rate monitor, WAHOO Tickr, and sync it with your phone for the only way to accurately track your calories burned
  • AshBlaic
    AshBlaic Posts: 2 Member
    Options
    What do I log in PIIT28 as??
  • Monimonia
    Monimonia Posts: 1 Member
    Options
    This is so cool! Thank you for sharing :) really nice of you.
  • Royuh
    Royuh Posts: 1 Member
    Options
    This is really useful! Thank you! :)
  • TheColorBug
    TheColorBug Posts: 2 Member
    Options
    You mentioned the "hard" and "intermediate" pilates videos, but what would you guys suggest for the easier videos? I'm on week 2 of the 28-day beginner's workout calendar. Should I still log them as calisthenics?
  • prov31jd
    prov31jd Posts: 153 Member
    Options
    I would log them as Pilates, since that is an option. And I total agree with all the comments out there about how easy Cassey is to watch and exercise with. She's so likable! You almost forget how hard some of the workouts are!
  • Aviyana28
    Aviyana28 Posts: 1 Member
    Options
    Wauw, thanks! Just what I needed.
  • buchanan8633
    buchanan8633 Posts: 1 Member
    Options
    Thank you so much!!!