If you're not losing weight...

segacs

Pretty much all methods of estimating exercise calorie burn are going to be inaccurate to some degree.

I get around this by using TDEE-20% for my goals. I first estimated my TDEE by taking a wild guesstimate of the rough average of how much exercise I do, and using online calculators. Then I logged and tracked real-world results, found out that my TDEE range was actually higher than the calculators suggested, and adjusted my calories upward a bit.

scottacular

dewsmom78 wrote: »

And using the calories burned on MFP, they are NOT accurate. Invest in a heart rate monitor. I see alot of my mfp friends posting that they're burning 600+ calories in a half hour, on an elliptical or walking. I am 10lbs overweight and I burn about 100 calories walking in 30 minutes. So - if you're not accurately posting calories burned and you're eating those calories back, you're not going to lose weight. Just a tip....

The scale of comparison I like to use to try and figure out how accurate calorie burn is that a professional footballer/soccer player can burn 750 calories+ in a 90 minute match running around constantly. I think for most people if they compare their efforts and time spent exercising to that will realise they haven't burn all that much.

999tigger

rabbitjb wrote: »

Cut MFP calories in half, judge weight lost against targeted weight loss across 8 weeks, adjust numbers or calories eaten back

It's as valid an approach as any other

My HRM is good for steady-state cardio and I take 100%, for calisthenics / HIIT I take about 75%, for strength about 50% ...actually what I do is round it down / cut off about 200 calories

Estimates

Estimates everywhere

This absolutely, they are all just estimates and just use soem common sense based on the results you get.
HRMs funnily enough are suited for what they were designed for and thats monitoring heart rates, beyond that they have weaknesses.

MFP may overestimate, but for other people its just fine. There are also many activities, many of which you wont have even entered. Lots of people overestimate their own effort.

Some of you enjoy making it more complicated than it really is.

Liftng4Lis

This would be why the majority of MFP'ers only eat back a portion of their exercise calories.

avskk

Someone on here (I wish I could remember who) posted a good formula for arriving at a closer calorie burn approximation: METs of the exercise you performed (easy to find on a Google search) X body weight in kilograms X time performed as percentage of an hour.

As an example, moderate stationary cycling is 3 METs, I weigh 235lbs so 106.5kg, and I do it for 30 minutes which is .5 of an hour. The formula would be 3*106.5*0.5=159.75calories, which I'd log as 160. For the same 30 minutes of moderate cycling MFP would like to give me 370 calories, a clearly insane allowance by any measure.

sgthaggard

kcjchang wrote: »

Estimates from a heart rate monitor are not going to be any better as it measures your heart rate, period.

HRM burns may still be estimates, but they are better estimates.

DeguelloTex

segacs wrote: »

Pretty much all methods of estimating exercise calorie burn are going to be inaccurate to some degree.

I get around this by using TDEE-20% for my goals. I first estimated my TDEE by taking a wild guesstimate of the rough average of how much exercise I do, and using online calculators. Then I logged and tracked real-world results, found out that my TDEE range was actually higher than the calculators suggested, and adjusted my calories upward a bit.

This.

Calculator results and calorie burns are estimated starting points. You need to refine them based on the results you are getting.

It doesn't take very long to figure out how much your exercise is affecting your results when compared with your food logging.

brianpperkins

sgthaggard wrote: »

kcjchang wrote: »

Estimates from a heart rate monitor are not going to be any better as it measures your heart rate, period.

HRM burns may still be estimates, but they are better estimates.

Not necessarily.

kcjchang

What people conveniently forget or ignore when estimating their calories, whether with MFP or MET, is that they use the energy expenditure corresponding to the high end of the intensity spectrum and that the estimates are derived from on a subset population that may not be like you.

For example the calories estimate for a 165lbs person who ride a bicycle at 12 miles for an hour is 599 (both MFP and MET) using Bicycling 12-14mph. Whereas, using 10-12mph MFP or 10-11.99mph MET would get you 450 and 509 calories, respectively. Since going at 14mph requires more work than 12mph, why would you use the higher burn rate?

The second unknown for most people is their metabolic efficiency. The general range is 20-25%, with elite athletes in the 25% range (a few measured at 27%). The fitter your are, the higher the efficiency and thus less calories is needed to do the same amount of work. For the 599 calories burnt, it translate to roughly 500 kj at 20% efficiency. Whereas an elite athlete, at 25% efficiency, equates to 478 calories. This a 25% reduction in energy expenditure. The equation to convert work is Calories = kj / efficiency / 4.184. Only by referring to reference study(ies) would you get a sense of the efficiency of the study participants and how it is being used applied to the general population.

Although MFP and MET are both estimates, you still have to use it correctly. The plug and play nature of this application makes it very easy for most people to over estimate what they are doing.

As for HRM, most people are do not realize that their heart rate response is different depending on the exercise performed (again the calories estimate is good only within a narrow band of intensity/conditions and generally does not apply for low or high intensity workouts). For example, your heart rate is higher when running than bicycling for the same amount of actual work. So which HRM model do you have that allows for correction of efficiency based on the type of exercise performed?

You may say so what, but here is the kicker: "An 176lbs (80kg) man who remains at the same weight for 10 years has, over this period, managed to balance a grand total of about 9.1 million kCal (Calories). In contrast, if he gains 22lbs (10kg) over this period, it’s because of a mismatch of about 70,000 kCal (Calories). In ten years, that works out at 19 kCal (Calories) per day." Lifted from http://sportsscientists.com/2010/01/exercise-and-weight-loss/, a really good read.