question - walking with a stroller

mkakids

I try to take daily walks with my baby and day care baby (both 8 month) while the older kids are in school when the weather permits. I walk a 20 minute mile pushing a double stroller (I use mapmywalk to calculate speed and distance). The weight of the stroller +kids, + gear is about 75lbs.

When I log it as walking pushing a stroller, one mile at 3mph is 151 calories. But when I just use the 'walking 3mph' entry, its 200 calories.

I know its not a huge difference for 1 mile, but I generally walk 4 miles or more. That's a 200 calorie difference!

Why doesn't the stroller count for more calories? Do people really walk that much slower when pushing a stroller? 3mph is fairly slow as it is.

I generally just log the "walking 3mph" entry. I almost never eat back all the calories anyways, so I suppose it doesn't matter. Just something I noticed and wondered about.

TeaBea

Log the lowest number. MFP is notorious for giving generous calorie burn estimates.

Walking 1 mile @ 3 MPH (no stroller) is not 151 calories unless you are a very big person.

Here's a chart with numbers that seem more reasonable to me (no stroller)...but weights are given

http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/howcalburn.htm

AllanMisner

Someone created each of those and put certain assumptions. None of them are exact, so plug a number that seems reasonable to you. After a few weeks, if you aren’t seeing the results you expected, tweak things.