I really feel like the "calories burned" estimate for exercise is just a crapshoot

augustremulous

Is there any accuracy to this whatsoever? Do you guys assume it's accurate or do you edit it to show that your burned less or more?

christar15235

When I do cardio, I go by how many cal the tredmill or bike says I've burned but when I have my strength training days I don't subtract any calories. Even when the app adds my calories burned I still try to stay under my original cal goal. I use the extra cal burned incase I want a sweet treat.

rybo

Its a total guess

Abbie918

Total guess. I use a HRM to estimate calories burned, and even then, I try not to eat them all back to give myself some wiggle room.

pbee89

I use a polar watch and hrm, it's pretty much in line with the machines. But it's helpful when I'm doing exercise classes so I know how much I've burnt

jemhh

Everything is an estimate but there's really no need for exactness. A place to start is all you need. If you're adding your exercise calories back and eating some or all of them, you start with whatever number you get from MFP, your HRM, or some other device/website. Eat a certain portion of the calories. After 3-4 weeks evaluate your progress. Losing too fast? Eat more. Too slow? Eat less. Just right? No need to change.

jacksonpt

Where are you getting the numbers from? I have no idea how MFP calculates calorie burns, but most other sources use some type of calculation based on a variety of factors. As such, calling it a crapshoot is probably an overstatement. It's more of an estimate, an estimate which could be very close for some, or very far off for others.

Ultimately you'll have to pick a method for estimating cals burned and log consistently using that method for a meaningful amount of time. Then you'll likely have to tweak your estimates a little based on your results. Trial and error is a necessary part of all this for most people.

jacksonpt

jemhh wrote: »

Everything is an estimate but there's really no need for exactness. A place to start is all you need. If you're adding your exercise calories back and eating some or all of them, you start with whatever number you get from MFP, your HRM, or some other device/website. Each a certain portion of the calories. After 3-4 weeks evaluate your progress. Losing too fast? Eat more. Too slow? Eat less. Just right? No need to change.

Good post... especially those first 2 sentences.

I totally get the desire to be exact, but that's a losing battle in this arena. Be consistent in what you're doing, then get comfortable with being close, because that's as good as it gets.

ilex70

You can plug your info in here if you want a second opinion so to speak.

https://healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

briscogun

Its all a crap shoot. Calories burned and calories taken in. If I run for a mile today and a mile tomorrow, I will not burn exactly the same number of calories each time. It'll be within a close range more than likely, but nailing down that number is impossible, so why fret over it? Same with the food I eat. If I eat a banana today and another one tomorrow, there is no way that both of those bananas are 105 calories exactly each day. But that's what I log.

It's more art than science. That's why we always get small fluctuations in our weight from day to day, even in maintenance if we eat the exact same diet day after day after day.

As a side note, I never ever use what the machine says for a calorie burn number when I log exercise. Ever. They are notoriously over-estimating the true number. The machine has no idea of your weight, height, heart rate, max effort, etc. It's giving you, me, the next guy, the midget, the lazy dude... all get the same burn if we ride that thing long enough. I plug my workouts into either MFP or the UA Record app and use the lesser of the two figures (I delete the other higher entry if I do both). The UA Record app syncs with MFP and gives me a bit more control of what my workout was and how many calories I did or didn't burn, too.

sijomial

Some exercises are easy to get a reasonable estimate (e.g. standard cardio activities), some hard (e.g. intervals or classes when you have to guess intensity), some not worth bothering even trying to be accurate (e.g. strength training).

But it's a far more productive use of time to concentrate on accuracy of your food logging than exercise logging.
Even someone with a high exercise volume like myself (I train most days including long cycle rides) the amount of accuracy required to hit your weight loss goals simply isn't that high.

If you don't get the expected results over time just simply adjust your calorie goal.

CindyFooWho

I'm all about estimating. On days I work out, significantly, I just eat just a little more than usual. I always leave calories for a "tv snack" but on workout days, I'll have a beer (or two!), also. That kind of thing.

Real question... not to derail this, but does MFP even take WEIGHT into account when calculating calories? Like, last night I blew through a cardio class that, 25 pounds ago, would really wipe me out. And I thought, well it makes sense that it would be an easier workout without 25 pounds strapped to my back, right? Therefore, I'm probably burning fewer calories doing this thing now.

Terpnista84

It is. That is why I eat for my deficit and any activity is just a bonus.

questionfear

Terpnista84 wrote: »

It is. That is why I eat for my deficit and any activity is just a bonus.

Exactly! I do the same, especially since most of my workouts are calisthenics and kettlebells, which are hard to quantify in terms of calorie burn. I see workouts as a bonus cushion, enough so if I have a beer on the weekend or eat out and can't perfectly calculate my portion it's not a total disaster. I don't see workouts as a way to increase my daily calories I eat.

sijomial

@CindyFooWho
"does MFP even take WEIGHT into account when calculating calories?"

Yes.

NorthCascades

I use a power meter on my bike, for training purposes, but this means I know within 5% how many calories I've burned on every ride. Even when I forget to wear my HRM. The PM measures how much energy I put into the bike in a very precise way.

A 50 mile ride burns about 2,000 Cal for me these days. I've been doing one every Saturday and another 50 to 75 miles during the rest of the week.

Asher_Ethan

When I was doing NEAT it drive me crazy trying to think of how many calories I was actually burning because of how crazy the mfp numbers are. I switched to TDEE to make my life a little easier.

zdyb23456

When I run on the treadmill, it give me about 100 calories per mile, which I think is pretty accurate, maybe a little generous, but not crazy. MyFitnessPal calculates about the same. Runner's World calculates about 90 calories per mile.

What's interesting is that the net burn (when you subtract off the calories you'd burn any just sitting around) is only about 75 calories per mile.

This is based on a 120 pound person. I weight a bit less so the numbers would be a little bit smaller.

I think other exercises are hard to determine because the variations on intensity, speed, exertion, etc. vastly skew the numbers.

augustremulous

jemhh wrote: »

Everything is an estimate but there's really no need for exactness. A place to start is all you need. If you're adding your exercise calories back and eating some or all of them, you start with whatever number you get from MFP, your HRM, or some other device/website. Eat a certain portion of the calories. After 3-4 weeks evaluate your progress. Losing too fast? Eat more. Too slow? Eat less. Just right? No need to change.

Yeah, this is my approach so far too. I've started with a 2 pound a week calorie deficit expecting that it should give me some wiggle room in case some things are off.

What made me think about it is that I did a 1500 yard freestyle swim this morning. It took me about 40 minutes, including the rests between sets and the cool down because I'm in worse shape than ever. On the one hand, I'm very heavy, so I should probably burn a lot of calories doing this. On the other, I swam through my childhood and competed in high school. I haven't been swimming much lately, but I have a pretty efficient technique down. There was a time when 2500-3000 yard swims were a daily thing for me, but it will take a long time to get back to that.

MFP estimates my swim at vigorous effort (which it was, because I haven't swam for awhile) at 690 calories burned. That seems like a lot more than I thought.

I've heard that the fit bit calorie estimates aren't accurate, but would it be safe to say that fitbit might be better at coming up with an estimate?

This site focuses so much on calculating calories consumed by weighting to the exact gram, so it seems weird that calories burned is pretty much a guess.

augustremulous

Also, MFP lists the same number of calories burned for my gentle restorative yoga class as my bikram yoga class. lol. I don't even bother listing yoga because I'm just there to take care of my knees and hip flexors.

I'm a little confused about the difference between NEAT and TDEE. A google search for NEAT just gives me a bunch of home organizing blogs.

I've decide to start this journey focusing on diet and portions. I've set my activity level to sedentary even though I'm not sedentary everyday - I do generally sit a lot at work but not always. I do brisk walk with my dog a couple times a day, and I've been logging those walks. I calculate that by looking at the mileage of my walks and how long it took to do them, and choosing the correct fraction of the walk speed in MFP. Upon the suggestion of a MFP user, I started logging weights too because I do get my heart rate up.

I've noticed other people logging things like "cleaning, light effort," or "painting." I don't include those. I also don't include the day to day walking - like me to the train, down the block to get coffee, grocery store trips, etc. If it's less than a half mile I don't bother logging it.

So which method am I doing?

mjwarbeck

For cardio MFP and the bike at my gym give almost the same number...so I don't use the bike number. I don't track calories from weights..,,or extra walking etc..,,

goldthistime

NEAT is non-exercise activity thermogenesis (calories burned not including exercise), and TDEE is Total Daily Energy Expenditure (includes calories for exercise). NEAT is the default MFP method. People who choose TDEE often concentrate on strength training over cardio (although not always of course).

goldthistime

Btw, I agree that it's difficult to accurately estimate calories burned during exercise. It's also difficult to estimate how big swings in exercise affect the rest of your day. If I really push it exercise-wise, I'm probably going to be sitting on the couch rather than cleaning up a storm. Vice versa, if it is a "rest day" for me, I'm brimming with energy and I find it difficult to stay under my calorie goals. Yet somehow it all works out.

mom23mangos

NorthCascades wrote: »

I use a power meter on my bike, for training purposes, but this means I know within 5% how many calories I've burned on every ride. Even when I forget to wear my HRM. The PM measures how much energy I put into the bike in a very precise way.

A 50 mile ride burns about 2,000 Cal for me these days. I've been doing one every Saturday and another 50 to 75 miles during the rest of the week.

I need to do that. I just use an app which takes your average speed and your weight, etc. So a 45 minute ride for me going 14mph with a tailwind shows up as more calories burned than a 45 minute ride going 9mph against a strong headwind.

ashleyrichey616

CindyFooWho wrote: »

Real question... not to derail this, but does MFP even take WEIGHT into account when calculating calories? Like, last night I blew through a cardio class that, 25 pounds ago, would really wipe me out. And I thought, well it makes sense that it would be an easier workout without 25 pounds strapped to my back, right? Therefore, I'm probably burning fewer calories doing this thing now.

While I agree that it's not totally accurate (when it comes to running, MFP is usually around 100-200 calories off what my HRM says for a long run, but for Zumba it can be anywhere from 50 to 250 off), I do know that it adapts for weight changes just based on seeing how things changed for me as I logged weekly weight changes.

And like so many other people have said, I don't trust it to be spot-on, but it's a good guideline to go by, with 'tweaks' based on my actual IRL performance.

CyberTone

augustremulous wrote: »

<<snip>>
This site focuses so much on calculating calories consumed by weighting to the exact gram, so it seems weird that calories burned is pretty much a guess.

It may be a guess, but it is an educated guess based on published research values for metabolic equivalent of tasks (METs). The METs values are used by many online calculators, including MFP; and they are a function of body weight. METs values can be used to estimate Calories burned per minute, which increase in relation to the intensity of the activity.

For some activities, such as running and walking, it is somewhat more reliable to estimate how many Calories burned per minute are used by a person of body weight x travelling y distance in z amount of time. In contrast, an activity such as circuit training has too many variables (number of sets and reps per set, weight per rep, amount of rest between sets, amount of rest between individual exercises, etc.) for a single METs value to provide a similarly reliable estimate for a general user.

Also, the METs values include your BMR (METs=1.0) in the estimated Calories burned per minute. The MFP Exercise Database does not subtract your BMR; so for very low intensity activities, such as METS = 2.5, the total estimated Calories burned per minute provided by MFP will be inflated quite a bit. For higher intensity activities, such as METs= 7.0 or greater, the total estimated Calories burned per minute provided by MFP will not be inflated as much.

From what I have noticed by syncing a couple different apps, some (but not all) activity trackers may account for your BMR when syncing individual exercises with the MFP Exercise Database.

I would assume most (if not all) of the all-day activity trackers do account for your BMR when syncing individual exercises; because the all-day activity trackers are designed with those algorithms, and most of them also use your history of Calories In versus Calories Out to fine-tune the estimates for how many extra Calories burned per minute you earn during timed activities.

Please see these links for basic information on METs...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent

https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/