MFP estimates calories low?

mylittlerainbow

I have been doing the YouTube exercise videos. MFP seems to give me very low counts for calories burned. For instance, I did one hour-long brisk walking (4mph)/aerobic group fitness class video, and it gave me 122 calories. The site says it would be 300-450 calories depending on your weight and intensity, and another calculator that I checked said 240 calories. So it's giving me only about half of the lowest possible calorie count. I guess that's conservative in terms of deciding to eat back calories (I do no more than half), but I'm feeling that I'm not getting full credit somehow for what I've actually burned! Is anybody else finding this?

cmriverside

What do you mean, MFP "gave you" low calories?

If you know that you are burning more, change the "Calories burned" part of the Exercise when the box pops up, just like changing portion sizes of food.

It DOES depend on your weight, so make sure your weight has been saved by going to Goals > View guided setup. When on the guided setup page, check your weight and save.

With that said, the first time I use a new "exercise" from the database it's often wrong, and sometimes it gets buggy and gives the wrong number. I usually just make my own New Exercise and then it works (most of the time, I mean the site is really buggy right now.)

chocolate_owl

MFP is really buggy right now, and I'm not sure its cardio database is very accurate outside of the basics like walking and running. If you don't think it's right, you can adjust the calories yourself. That said:

1) I have found that branded fitness programs (Beachbody, Zumba, etc. ) will state the high end of what super-fit people who go all out might burn to entice people to try them out. "You can burn 800 calories in one hour!!! is awesome marketing.

2) Most calculators - whether they're online, attached to a treadmill, whatever - are "double counting" in the sense that they are including the calories you would burn sitting around doing nothing. These calories are already included in your MFP goals. If a treadmill tells me I burn 300 calories, I log 150-180 exercise calories.

I think if you take MFP's lowball estimate of what you've burned, that's a safe way to make sure you're not actually eating exercise calories you didn't really burn. It might be a bummer to not see "accurate" numbers, but really these are all estimates on top of estimates anyway. If you start losing weight faster than expected, eat a little more.

mylittlerainbow

Thank you. I do agree that, for the purpose of conservatism, it's not horrible to have it underestimated, just that if the calculator I used says 240 calories and it estimates only 122 calories, that's quite low. By half.

Buggy and not just me! Good to know. I'm forever getting error messages and "not available" messages just innocently logging my food or exercise. Thought maybe I had some instability on my computer or something.

sijomial

A screenshot of how exactly you logged your exercise would help as your diary is private.
I can't visualise what your workout actually was. Walking on the spot with some calishthenics thrown in? Walking on a treadmill with some extra moves?

Many of the entries are taken from the Compendium of Physical Activities and they would tend to be high estimates as they are gross cal estimates and not the net cal estimates you really want if using MFP as designed.
(That's not high by a percentage as many seem to believe....)

Wonder if you simply picked up a bad database entry?

Duck_Puddle

Was it a Leslie Sansone video? I’ve had friends over the years that have done them and logged them as low impact aerobics. They seem to do ok with their goals. Maybe that would work?

mylittlerainbow

Yes, Leslie Sansone, and the pace is 4mph with arm movements to increase the heartbeat. It really is low impact aerobics, but MFP is only giving me a calorie count as if it were Yoga or Pilates. (I log it as a group fitness class - maybe I'm choosing wrong, but that is what it is!)

TeaBea

mylittlerainbow wrote: »

Yes, Leslie Sansone, and the pace is 4mph with arm movements to increase the heartbeat. It really is low impact aerobics, but MFP is only giving me a calorie count as if it were Yoga or Pilates. (I log it as a group fitness class - maybe I'm choosing wrong, but that is what it is!)

Aerobics, low impact is a pretty good estimate for me with Leslie Sansone. I've checked this against a Polar heart rate monitor. Maybe you chose something different.

mylittlerainbow

I did. I chose "Group Fitness Classes" because that's how it seemed to me. I'll experiment with what I get if I change. Thank you.

mylittlerainbow

Okay, thank you. I changed to "Aerobics, Low Impact" and the calorie count sounded much more reasonable.