Do you ever comment on unrealistic logging by friends?
CarvedTones
Posts: 2,340 Member
Sometimes I see things in my news feed and think about trying to politely say there is no way in he11 you burned that many calories in that much time doing that activity, but I never do. If it was an IRL friend, I would say something as politely as I could. Here, I just shake my head and ignore it. Sometimes I wonder if I should say something; maybe they really have no idea. OTOH, I don't want to come across as a know it all jerk.
14
Replies
-
I stay out of it. Sometimes they know it but it is their fitness band or whatever and most people who are losing know how much they can eat and lose. I know what you mean tho. 1000 calories for a walk? I get 125.18
-
depends on the situation... for a newbie i would be more likely to say something - in a nice way about exercise burns.
more often than not with food i wont do unless they then complain about not losing weight. i think for the most part things can be said in a way that isn't jerk-ish...15 -
No. It’s none of my business, and if they’ve got bad logs, they’ll realize over time. If they ask for help, I’ll chime in, but not before hand.31
-
I don't. If they specifically ask for help or advice, then I would consider it.12
-
cheryldumais wrote: »I stay out of it. Sometimes they know it but it is their fitness band or whatever and most people who are losing know how much they can eat and lose. I know what you mean tho. 1000 calories for a walk? I get 125.
cleaning and cooking are my favourite ones... and anything from mapmywalk or mapmyrun15 -
TavistockToad wrote: »cheryldumais wrote: »I stay out of it. Sometimes they know it but it is their fitness band or whatever and most people who are losing know how much they can eat and lose. I know what you mean tho. 1000 calories for a walk? I get 125.
cleaning and cooking are my favourite ones... and anything from mapmywalk or mapmyrun
Lol. I used to log cleaning and cooking when I did Weight Watchers. In hindsight, I learned my lesson.8 -
I guess I'm just passive-aggressive... If I saw unrealistic calorie burns and then that person was whining about "why am I not losing weight???" then I would probably unfriend. Otherwise I would let it go because it's not really my business.4
-
One of my "friends" adjusted their calorie limit by thousands of calories everyday so it always said they were under their calorie limit for the day on people's walls. I just unfriended them. That kind of delusion and/or trickery is the enemy of weight loss and made me feel a bit weird. You can't control what people do, you only control what you do and I am not gonna bust people I barely know for being dishonest, that's a bad time.10
-
Nope.
I'm sure they have a mother and do not wish for another.37 -
I would only say something if the person was griping about not losing weight as expected. Even then it would be on the order of "Wow, that's a lot of calories for a fifteen minute walk! Are you sure about that?" Instead of just telling them they are wrong.
Mapmyhike always gives me insane-seeming calorie burns; however, my rate of loss is always at or higher than expected, so for some reason it seems to work out. Probably because I'm less sedentary in other ways.4 -
Only if they later post wondering about why they aren't doing better.5
-
If they have a fitness tracking app connected to MFP, it will often post automatically with ridiculous burns. For some people, the accountability is more important than the calorie burn.
I would only comment if the person specifically asked for help or feedback about their diary. If they were venting, I might ask if they wanted someone to take a look, but I wouldn't just respond with a list of what was wrong. Sometimes people just want to express frustration without necessarily being in the frame of mind to want to work on a solution.14 -
And, it's like, I look at my log from yesterday. The feed posts that I burned 1200+ calories from 214 minutes of exercise.
Except that's not quite true. I have Runkeeper synced to MFP, and I recently started syncing my Watch; I still use Runkeeper to log my runs, because the stats comparison is better than Watch and it tracks the miles on my shoes. So MFP was double counting my 7-mile run. I went in and deleted the Runkeeper entry from my log, but didn't bother to do anything with the feed, because honestly, I don't *care* what someone else thinks. If someone on my friends list started giving me an earful about that, they'd be getting an earful right back.17 -
Part of the issue is with the MFP calorie estimators for exercise, which seem to be in active conflict with their activity multipliers. For instance, lets take a 30 year old, 5'4, 160 pound woman. BMR would be 1431, which means that if someone defined themselves as Sedentary, they would have a normal burn of 1717. Now lets say that person does house cleaning for a living. They have 2 options. They could choose their activity level as either "active" or "highly active", which would give them another 500-700 calories per day of budgeting. Or they could log 480 minutes of "Cleaning, light, moderate effort", which would likely say that they burned about 3x the calories than if they included that as part of their activity level.
So I think a big issue with calorie logging is that logging basic household activities greatly overestimates the number of calories burned. Exercise is not meant to be done for hours. If a person finds themselves doing hours of a life related exercise on the regular, they should raise their activity level, rather than logging it as exercise. Exercise should be for specific acts of exercise outside of normal daily activity.16 -
If they have a fitness tracking app connected to MFP, it will often post automatically with ridiculous burns. For some people, the accountability is more important than the calorie burn.
I would only comment if the person specifically asked for help or feedback about their diary. If they were venting, I might ask if they wanted someone to take a look, but I wouldn't just respond with a list of what was wrong. Sometimes people just want to express frustration without necessarily being in the frame of mind to want to work on a solution.
They're still responsible for making sure their tools are working properly. Cleaning for 90 minutes and posting a 1600 calorie burn might be a nice fantasy but that's all it is. But yes, I just shake my head and move on.
2 -
Nah i say nothing.no point5
-
I don't say anything, but certainly notice. I don't log some of my activities such as breastfeeding or most exercise, but my fitbit is synced to MFP and if I use Map my Run to track my runs that syncs as well. I do better with losing when I don't log all of that, because then I won't "eat those calories back".1
-
I had MFP synced with my PureGym app so MFP knew when I was at the gym and how long for and I started getting 1000+kcal burns for "Aerobics, general" posted automatically for a 200kcal (max) lifting session. Friends would "Like" it before I could delete and I just had to hope to goodness they wouldn't think I'm logging that nonsense on purpose.
Give the benefit of the doubt maybe. Even if you know it's inflated it can be nice to keep track of general activity minutes week to week.6 -
I’m surprised that so many people even look at the news feed. I almost never read mine. But no, I don’t say anything. If they want advice, they’ll ask for advice; otherwise it’s none of my business.9
-
TavistockToad wrote: »cheryldumais wrote: »I stay out of it. Sometimes they know it but it is their fitness band or whatever and most people who are losing know how much they can eat and lose. I know what you mean tho. 1000 calories for a walk? I get 125.
cleaning and cooking are my favourite ones... and anything from mapmywalk or mapmyrun
That would be awesome if I burned the calories some people post for cleaning! Lol I clean the house 5 days a week! Or burned 400 calories weightlifting! 🤣 I only use time under tension and then only for snits and giggles.0 -
I consider it to be their business unless they're specifically asking for help or advice.5
-
I don't look at other peoples diaries unless I am asked to. Then, the only thing I question is unreasonably low calorie days. Sometimes my calorie burns look ridiculous but I don't eat most of that back because I know it's not accurate. Jiu Jitsu regularly gives me over 900 calories. In reality, I probably burn about 150-250 depending on whether it is a grappling night. I just like the accountability of logging my physical activity.0
-
I would respond to someone asking what is going wrong, but would not critique without invitation.
Nunya bidness2 -
This is why I don't do "friends". I'm sort of picky and basically would "unfriend" a person who was that intrusive. So yes--you would come across as a know it all...who doesn't know me.6
-
I would only mention it with several caveats:
1. Person also posts about frustration or inability to lose
2. Only address through a private message, never in a public forum
3. Address it with the intent to help
4. Make sure the person actually wants help
Something like --- Hi, I noticed you are frustrated and I see something with your calorie burns that may be a factor. Do you want some help figuring it out?
(I expect all of you to send me this message on my next 1000 calorie burn!)6 -
mountainmare wrote: »This is why I don't do "friends". I'm sort of picky and basically would "unfriend" a person who was that intrusive. So yes--you would come across as a know it all...who doesn't know me.
i think its really interesting how people view their 'friends' on here...5 -
Nope. Who says what's unrealistic? Just because I think it may be unrealistic doesn't mean it is unrealistic to others. I have to focus on my own goals based on my own abilities and willpower, threshhold.2
-
Nope. That’s their business and I don’t know what kind of setup they have and what kind of number voodoo they might be doing to account for a million things that I don’t know about.
For example-I once posted a 430 calorie burn for 50 min of yoga. Did I burn 430 calories doing 50 min of yoga? Of course not. But was my fitbit half tracking/shut off by itself and didn’t track 1/2 of my run and because of the way fitbit and mfp interact-that was the easiest way to account for the missing calories? Yes. Did I feel like I just should be able to post whatever I want in my diary/feed without a doctoral thesis and mathematical proof explaining why? Also yes.8
This discussion has been closed.
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 393.6K Introduce Yourself
- 43.8K Getting Started
- 260.3K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.9K Food and Nutrition
- 47.5K Recipes
- 232.5K Fitness and Exercise
- 431 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.6K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 153K Motivation and Support
- 8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.8K MyFitnessPal Information
- 24 News and Announcements
- 1.1K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.6K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions