MFP Activity accuracy

gardenesseligson

when I log an aerobic activity from MFP 's list, are the calories expended based on my personal weight and height, or are they based on the average 150-lb American?

kathrynjean_

I *believe* they are based on your personal stats, but they are still regarded as being a gross overestimation. Most people recommend eating back only 25-50% of your exercise calories if you're only using MFP to track. Before I got a Fitbit, I would just halve the reading that MFP gave me for any exercise.

CyberTone

​The MFP Exercise Diary provides estimated Calories burned for cardiovascular activities using published metabolic equivalent of tasks (METs) values, which in general align with the values for similar activities found in the Compendium of Physical Activities. The greater the METs value, the greater amount of estimated Calories burned per minute for a person's body weight.​ The METs values provide estimates for a general population of a given weight, and an individual user's Calorie burn estimate may be different because of a number of factors, including intensity level.

This method does not subtract your resting METs value, which is 1.0, from the total METs value of the listed activity. For more intense aerobics activities such as running, rowing, and cycling the estimated Calories will be fairly accurate. For less intense aerobics activities, such as gardening or walking 2.0 to 2.5 mph, the estimated Calories could be inflated because the METs values of the less intense activities are approaching the value of your resting METs.

Depending on the activity and intensity level of the aerobic activity, some users log a percentage of the actual minutes performed to account for subtracting the resting METs value; while other users log the correct number of minutes then edit the estimated Calories to reduce them by a percentage.