Can I make MPF only give me back only a percentage of exercise calories?
joemjr2
Posts: 2 Member
I often worry that MFP is giving me too many calories back to eat for exercise that I do. This is partially because I think cardo equipment in the gym may be overly "nice" when reporting calories burned.
Even if the calories burned numbers are accurate, I feel like if I eat back all the calories that I burned, then I've basically cancelled out the exercise, so it kind of feels like it was for nothing. Yes, I know that there are still the health benefits, but still, I'd like the exercise to help me lose weight.
I don't want to completely turn off the "Adjust my daily calorie goal" feature because having extra calories to eat is definitely a motivator to exercise.
What I think would really be ideal is to only eat back a portion (maybe 50%) of the calories that I burn from exercise. This would give me the best of both worlds. Actually 3 benefits: 1) I get to eat more food. 2) I lose more weight by exercising. 3) I'm motivated to do something healthy.
I'd like to have MFP do all of this automatically for me. I don't want to have to purposely underreport my exercise. I also don't want to have to do the math several times a day to figure out how many calories I can "really" eat. I want the numbers in MFP to be correct.
I can't seem to find a way to make MFP do what I want. Am I missing something? Is this a common feature request?
Even if the calories burned numbers are accurate, I feel like if I eat back all the calories that I burned, then I've basically cancelled out the exercise, so it kind of feels like it was for nothing. Yes, I know that there are still the health benefits, but still, I'd like the exercise to help me lose weight.
I don't want to completely turn off the "Adjust my daily calorie goal" feature because having extra calories to eat is definitely a motivator to exercise.
What I think would really be ideal is to only eat back a portion (maybe 50%) of the calories that I burn from exercise. This would give me the best of both worlds. Actually 3 benefits: 1) I get to eat more food. 2) I lose more weight by exercising. 3) I'm motivated to do something healthy.
I'd like to have MFP do all of this automatically for me. I don't want to have to purposely underreport my exercise. I also don't want to have to do the math several times a day to figure out how many calories I can "really" eat. I want the numbers in MFP to be correct.
I can't seem to find a way to make MFP do what I want. Am I missing something? Is this a common feature request?
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No, but you can create an exercise and assign it a calorie amount. Also, eating back all of your exercise calories doesn't cancel anything out. You selected a goal of X Lbs per week loss and MFP gave you a calorie target WITHOUT exercise to accomplish that. Not accounting for exercise can create a deficit that is overly large and unhealthy.
If I tell MFP I want to lose 1 Lb per week I'll get a calorie target of 1900 (before exercise) which means MFP is estimating my maintenance calories (before exercise) to be 2400. Now lets say I exercise and burn 400 calories...I can eat those back and maintain the established deficit by eating 2300 calories because my maintenance number would have also increased to 2400+400=2,800. 2,800-2,300=500 calorie deficit still.2 -
My first thought is, "Do you know for a fact that the numbers you are getting are XXX% wrong?" How long have you been logging food and exercise here? Myfitnesspal uses different calculations than 99.9% of all the calculators out there. Here is the explanation:
https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-
I'd suggest just using the numbers it gives you while you log food and exercise for at least two months before doing random adjustments.
At that point you can always change the number in the "calories burned" box for that exercise...if that doesn't work, just create your own New Exercise and then I know for sure that the calories can be edited.
Go to Exercise > Add Exercise (search) then when the search results come up, you can type in your own exercise and then create a new one. This is the same thing cwolfman was saying above.
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/new?date=2022-12-30&type=cardio0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »No, but you can create an exercise and assign it a calorie amount. Also, eating back all of your exercise calories doesn't cancel anything out. You selected a goal of X Lbs per week loss and MFP gave you a calorie target WITHOUT exercise to accomplish that. Not accounting for exercise can create a deficit that is overly large and unhealthy.
If I tell MFP I want to lose 1 Lb per week I'll get a calorie target of 1900 (before exercise) which means MFP is estimating my maintenance calories (before exercise) to be 2400. Now lets say I exercise and burn 400 calories...I can eat those back and maintain the established deficit by eating 2300 calories because my maintenance number would have also increased to 2400+400=2,800. 2,800-2,300=500 calorie deficit still.
Yes, I created my own exercise for several activities.
I only use "Gardening, general" when I am doing something intense like digging with a shovel (as opposed to a trowel.) I created "Gardening, moderate" to use for less intense gardening.
I created "Classical Stretch" by averaging the calories given for "Stretching, hatha yoga" and "Calisthenics, home, light/moderate effort."
You do that here: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/new or after searching the exercise database and not finding what you're looking for.
@joemjr2 the calories at the gym might include your "just being alive" calories when what you want is just the intentional exercise calories on top of that. If you use values from MFP, what do you get? For example, compare the calories you get from the treadmill with MFP's "Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace" (or whatever speed you use.) If the treadmill is higher, use MFP.0 -
Experiment with the numbers given you by the calculators and see how they work for you. You can always adjust them if you find you aren't losing as you expect. i.e. when my bike says I burn 165 calories but MFP gives me 200, I change the entry to the lower number.
The calories given by my treadmill are about double the actual calories I probably burn. That is partly because there is no way to input my actual weight vs. the average one the machine uses. It will say I burn 1000 calories/hour running at 6 mph. I know that number is wrong. So I ignore the TM numbers. Instead, I use the MFP calorie estimates for walking and running, which are said to be high, becaue they include the calories you burn during that time just existing. Still, they agree with my Garmin and the results have worked for me. On the exercise bike, I use the calorie number that the bike gives, which are lower than those that MFP gives. Again, it seems to work for me, since I have been able to maintain my weight eating back all of my exercise calories. But I seem to burn a bit more than the average woman my age and size.0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »No, but you can create an exercise and assign it a calorie amount. Also, eating back all of your exercise calories doesn't cancel anything out. You selected a goal of X Lbs per week loss and MFP gave you a calorie target WITHOUT exercise to accomplish that. Not accounting for exercise can create a deficit that is overly large and unhealthy.
If I tell MFP I want to lose 1 Lb per week I'll get a calorie target of 1900 (before exercise) which means MFP is estimating my maintenance calories (before exercise) to be 2400. Now lets say I exercise and burn 400 calories...I can eat those back and maintain the established deficit by eating 2300 calories because my maintenance number would have also increased to 2400+400=2,800. 2,800-2,300=500 calorie deficit still.
Yes, I created my own exercise for several activities.
I only use "Gardening, general" when I am doing something intense like digging with a shovel (as opposed to a trowel.) I created "Gardening, moderate" to use for less intense gardening.
I created "Classical Stretch" by averaging the calories given for "Stretching, hatha yoga" and "Calisthenics, home, light/moderate effort."
You do that here: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/new or after searching the exercise database and not finding what you're looking for.
@joemjr2 the calories at the gym might include your "just being alive" calories when what you want is just the intentional exercise calories on top of that. If you use values from MFP, what do you get? For example, compare the calories you get from the treadmill with MFP's "Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace" (or whatever speed you use.) If the treadmill is higher, use MFP.
Under the covers, MFP is using the METS method of estimating exercise calories, which is a research-based thing.
Another option for estimating calories for your own activities (using METS) is to see if researchers have estimated or calculated average METS for your exercise. This is a quite-comprehensive source:
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home
With that information, you can either use the METS value to estimate calories (if you like math), or (if you don't like math) find an exercise in MFP's database that has a similar METS value to the research estimate for your activity.
Once you create a custom exercise with a calorie estimate, MFP will scale that estimate for you automagically each time you use your custom exercise, adjusting the calories based on the number of minutes you exercise and your currently-recorded body weight in MFP. (That is, you only need to go through the more complex steps in the preceding paragraph once per exercise type.)
As an aside, I'd mention that this is a good source for calorie estimates for walking/running - likely better than the MFP estimates - if you make it a point to select "net" in the energy box.
https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »No, but you can create an exercise and assign it a calorie amount. Also, eating back all of your exercise calories doesn't cancel anything out. You selected a goal of X Lbs per week loss and MFP gave you a calorie target WITHOUT exercise to accomplish that. Not accounting for exercise can create a deficit that is overly large and unhealthy.
If I tell MFP I want to lose 1 Lb per week I'll get a calorie target of 1900 (before exercise) which means MFP is estimating my maintenance calories (before exercise) to be 2400. Now lets say I exercise and burn 400 calories...I can eat those back and maintain the established deficit by eating 2300 calories because my maintenance number would have also increased to 2400+400=2,800. 2,800-2,300=500 calorie deficit still.
Yes, I created my own exercise for several activities.
I only use "Gardening, general" when I am doing something intense like digging with a shovel (as opposed to a trowel.) I created "Gardening, moderate" to use for less intense gardening.
I created "Classical Stretch" by averaging the calories given for "Stretching, hatha yoga" and "Calisthenics, home, light/moderate effort."
You do that here: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/new or after searching the exercise database and not finding what you're looking for.
@joemjr2 the calories at the gym might include your "just being alive" calories when what you want is just the intentional exercise calories on top of that. If you use values from MFP, what do you get? For example, compare the calories you get from the treadmill with MFP's "Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace" (or whatever speed you use.) If the treadmill is higher, use MFP.
Under the covers, MFP is using the METS method of estimating exercise calories, which is a research-based thing.
Another option for estimating calories for your own activities (using METS) is to see if researchers have estimated or calculated average METS for your exercise. This is a quite-comprehensive source:
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home
With that information, you can either use the METS value to estimate calories (if you like math), or (if you don't like math) find an exercise in MFP's database that has a similar METS value to the research estimate for your activity.
Once you create a custom exercise with a calorie estimate, MFP will scale that estimate for you automagically each time you use your custom exercise, adjusting the calories based on the number of minutes you exercise and your currently-recorded body weight in MFP. (That is, you only need to go through the more complex steps in the preceding paragraph once per exercise type.)
As an aside, I'd mention that this is a good source for calorie estimates for walking/running - likely better than the MFP estimates - if you make it a point to select "net" in the energy box.
https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
@AnnPT77 thanks! I was thinking of this thread this AM when I did Tai Chi. The classes I've taken, from a variety of teachers, all seem to expend the equivalent of my "Classical Stretch" creation than the higher value of the database's Tai Chi.
I went to a few categories in https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home and cannot find Tai Chi - do you have a suggestion of something similar?
ETA: I wonder if MFP is using "martial arts, different types, slower pace, novice performers, practice" - 5.3 METS?0 -
They have Tai Chi there.kshama2001 wrote: »I was thinking of this thread this AM when I did Tai Chi. The classes I've taken, from a variety of teachers, all seem to expend the equivalent of my "Classical Stretch" creation than the higher value of the database's Tai Chi.
I went to a few categories in https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home and cannot find Tai Chi - do you have a suggestion of something similar?
ETA: I wonder if MFP is using "martial arts, different types, slower pace, novice performers, practice" - 5.3 METS?
Two entries, 1.5 and 3.0. I was going to say if this wasn't listed, that 5.3 seemed high based on my admittedly extremely low knowledge of tai chi. From what I've seen on TV shows and movies it looks more slower paced like yoga than say Cobra Kai.
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/Activity-Categories/sports0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »No, but you can create an exercise and assign it a calorie amount. Also, eating back all of your exercise calories doesn't cancel anything out. You selected a goal of X Lbs per week loss and MFP gave you a calorie target WITHOUT exercise to accomplish that. Not accounting for exercise can create a deficit that is overly large and unhealthy.
If I tell MFP I want to lose 1 Lb per week I'll get a calorie target of 1900 (before exercise) which means MFP is estimating my maintenance calories (before exercise) to be 2400. Now lets say I exercise and burn 400 calories...I can eat those back and maintain the established deficit by eating 2300 calories because my maintenance number would have also increased to 2400+400=2,800. 2,800-2,300=500 calorie deficit still.
Yes, I created my own exercise for several activities.
I only use "Gardening, general" when I am doing something intense like digging with a shovel (as opposed to a trowel.) I created "Gardening, moderate" to use for less intense gardening.
I created "Classical Stretch" by averaging the calories given for "Stretching, hatha yoga" and "Calisthenics, home, light/moderate effort."
You do that here: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/new or after searching the exercise database and not finding what you're looking for.
@joemjr2 the calories at the gym might include your "just being alive" calories when what you want is just the intentional exercise calories on top of that. If you use values from MFP, what do you get? For example, compare the calories you get from the treadmill with MFP's "Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace" (or whatever speed you use.) If the treadmill is higher, use MFP.
Under the covers, MFP is using the METS method of estimating exercise calories, which is a research-based thing.
Another option for estimating calories for your own activities (using METS) is to see if researchers have estimated or calculated average METS for your exercise. This is a quite-comprehensive source:
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home
With that information, you can either use the METS value to estimate calories (if you like math), or (if you don't like math) find an exercise in MFP's database that has a similar METS value to the research estimate for your activity.
Once you create a custom exercise with a calorie estimate, MFP will scale that estimate for you automagically each time you use your custom exercise, adjusting the calories based on the number of minutes you exercise and your currently-recorded body weight in MFP. (That is, you only need to go through the more complex steps in the preceding paragraph once per exercise type.)
As an aside, I'd mention that this is a good source for calorie estimates for walking/running - likely better than the MFP estimates - if you make it a point to select "net" in the energy box.
https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
@AnnPT77 thanks! I was thinking of this thread this AM when I did Tai Chi. The classes I've taken, from a variety of teachers, all seem to expend the equivalent of my "Classical Stretch" creation than the higher value of the database's Tai Chi.
I went to a few categories in https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home and cannot find Tai Chi - do you have a suggestion of something similar?
ETA: I wonder if MFP is using "martial arts, different types, slower pace, novice performers, practice" - 5.3 METS?
Oh, man . . . that is such a super loaded question for me. (The reason is even more off topic to the thread than this sub-discussion, but I'll explain in a spoiler at the end.)
In the Compendium, there is "tai chi, qi gong, sitting, light effort", code 15672. Without actually reading the research (since that's color-coded as a research-supported one), that's probably all intended to be sitting-only. at 1.5 METS. There's also "tai chi, qi gong, general" code 15620 at 3.0 METS.
Purely subjective opinion - as someone who's done a lot of Tai Chi BTW - I think your intuition is correct: that Tai Chi as taught in most classes is more like your "Classic Stretch" thing, calorically, if I'm guessing right about MFP's underpinnings. To me, somewhere 2-2.5 METS seems reasonable for a typical class or video, maybe closer to 3.0 in rare cases.
The Compendium has Hatha Yoga (02150) at 2.5 METS, Mild stretching at 2.3, Light Calisthenics at 2.8. (MFP may be using the 2000 Compendium values rather than the 2011, don't know, haven't tried to do the back math or docs research to figure that out.)My late husband was a Tai Chi and kung fu teacher, and I practiced regularly myself for around 8 years, though never as seriously as he.
Tai Chi originated as a serious martial art, in which the slow forms practice is primarily a way of retraining movement patterns (oversimplifying a little), because the Tai Chi body mechanics for sensing and power generation are . . . unusual, compared to average people's typical movement patterns.
In more recent times, Tai Chi has sort of bifurcated into two general streams:
The smaller one (in the US at least) is still teaching a serious martial art. Those practices include
substantially more vigorous activity, drills and sparring, plus faster-paced applications practice, in addition to the slow forms practice. Chen style is more likely to be like this, though some Yang lineages (and possibly smaller others) are still teaching as a martial art.
The larger stream is non-martial, and includes quite a few intermingled flavors, potentially. In general, it's more a Qi Gong type of practice, or a general exercise practice. Tai Chi is taught in the equivalent of gym classes in Taiwan (and probably mainland China, though I'm less familiar with that). Chinese teachers of Tai Chi are extra valued in the US, and IME a bunch of them in community ed programs learned Tai Chi in gym class or something similar - at least the teachers around here.
There was also a hippie-esque influence on US Tai Chi (I'm sure you're familiar with a similar thing in Yoga in the US). That type is a little more Qi Gong, balance your chi, meditative, get in tune with the universe kind of orientation. These types of classes are very non-martial, even if they demo applications or include push-hands practice, IME.
Because of some research that showed Tai Chi as helping balance and some other physical function in the elderly or disabled, there are now also "Tai Chi for Arthritis" classes and that sort of thing.
The style I was trained in, a lineage via Taiwan but not gym class, is taught as a martial art. There is not huge respect for the actual body mechanics of the more exclusively Qi Gong/general exercise teachings, though - hereabouts, at least - teachers in the various sub-types are mutually respectful.
It's a loaded question for me because the 5.3 METS idea may apply to Tai Chi taught as an actual martial art; some people learning applications or push-hands drills in addition to form believe they're being taught a martial art (because that's how the teacher presents it), but that's still probably a 2.5-ish METS kind of thing; and those classes doing form only are usually not pushing the body mechanics or drills that would make the form go much beyond the gentle stretching METS (2.0-ish or a bit over) or METS for various other standing-with-slow-movement daily life stuff. But some of the people who follow the more Qi Gong style types, perhaps especially those with teachers who do show applications, are likely to feel somewhat sensitive to perceived slights to their practice. Saying "it's not 5.3 METS" is probably a slight.
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kshama2001 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »No, but you can create an exercise and assign it a calorie amount. Also, eating back all of your exercise calories doesn't cancel anything out. You selected a goal of X Lbs per week loss and MFP gave you a calorie target WITHOUT exercise to accomplish that. Not accounting for exercise can create a deficit that is overly large and unhealthy.
If I tell MFP I want to lose 1 Lb per week I'll get a calorie target of 1900 (before exercise) which means MFP is estimating my maintenance calories (before exercise) to be 2400. Now lets say I exercise and burn 400 calories...I can eat those back and maintain the established deficit by eating 2300 calories because my maintenance number would have also increased to 2400+400=2,800. 2,800-2,300=500 calorie deficit still.
Yes, I created my own exercise for several activities.
I only use "Gardening, general" when I am doing something intense like digging with a shovel (as opposed to a trowel.) I created "Gardening, moderate" to use for less intense gardening.
I created "Classical Stretch" by averaging the calories given for "Stretching, hatha yoga" and "Calisthenics, home, light/moderate effort."
You do that here: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/new or after searching the exercise database and not finding what you're looking for.
@joemjr2 the calories at the gym might include your "just being alive" calories when what you want is just the intentional exercise calories on top of that. If you use values from MFP, what do you get? For example, compare the calories you get from the treadmill with MFP's "Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace" (or whatever speed you use.) If the treadmill is higher, use MFP.
Under the covers, MFP is using the METS method of estimating exercise calories, which is a research-based thing.
Another option for estimating calories for your own activities (using METS) is to see if researchers have estimated or calculated average METS for your exercise. This is a quite-comprehensive source:
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home
With that information, you can either use the METS value to estimate calories (if you like math), or (if you don't like math) find an exercise in MFP's database that has a similar METS value to the research estimate for your activity.
Once you create a custom exercise with a calorie estimate, MFP will scale that estimate for you automagically each time you use your custom exercise, adjusting the calories based on the number of minutes you exercise and your currently-recorded body weight in MFP. (That is, you only need to go through the more complex steps in the preceding paragraph once per exercise type.)
As an aside, I'd mention that this is a good source for calorie estimates for walking/running - likely better than the MFP estimates - if you make it a point to select "net" in the energy box.
https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
@AnnPT77 thanks! I was thinking of this thread this AM when I did Tai Chi. The classes I've taken, from a variety of teachers, all seem to expend the equivalent of my "Classical Stretch" creation than the higher value of the database's Tai Chi.
I went to a few categories in https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home and cannot find Tai Chi - do you have a suggestion of something similar?
ETA: I wonder if MFP is using "martial arts, different types, slower pace, novice performers, practice" - 5.3 METS?
Oh, man . . . that is such a super loaded question for me. (The reason is even more off topic to the thread than this sub-discussion, but I'll explain in a spoiler at the end.)
In the Compendium, there is "tai chi, qi gong, sitting, light effort", code 15672. Without actually reading the research (since that's color-coded as a research-supported one), that's probably all intended to be sitting-only. at 1.5 METS. There's also "tai chi, qi gong, general" code 15620 at 3.0 METS.
Purely subjective opinion - as someone who's done a lot of Tai Chi BTW - I think your intuition is correct: that Tai Chi as taught in most classes is more like your "Classic Stretch" thing, calorically, if I'm guessing right about MFP's underpinnings. To me, somewhere 2-2.5 METS seems reasonable for a typical class or video, maybe closer to 3.0 in rare cases.
The Compendium has Hatha Yoga (02150) at 2.5 METS, Mild stretching at 2.3, Light Calisthenics at 2.8. (MFP may be using the 2000 Compendium values rather than the 2011, don't know, haven't tried to do the back math or docs research to figure that out.)My late husband was a Tai Chi and kung fu teacher, and I practiced regularly myself for around 8 years, though never as seriously as he.
Tai Chi originated as a serious martial art, in which the slow forms practice is primarily a way of retraining movement patterns (oversimplifying a little), because the Tai Chi body mechanics for sensing and power generation are . . . unusual, compared to average people's typical movement patterns.
In more recent times, Tai Chi has sort of bifurcated into two general streams:
The smaller one (in the US at least) is still teaching a serious martial art. Those practices include
substantially more vigorous activity, drills and sparring, plus faster-paced applications practice, in addition to the slow forms practice. Chen style is more likely to be like this, though some Yang lineages (and possibly smaller others) are still teaching as a martial art.
The larger stream is non-martial, and includes quite a few intermingled flavors, potentially. In general, it's more a Qi Gong type of practice, or a general exercise practice. Tai Chi is taught in the equivalent of gym classes in Taiwan (and probably mainland China, though I'm less familiar with that). Chinese teachers of Tai Chi are extra valued in the US, and IME a bunch of them in community ed programs learned Tai Chi in gym class or something similar - at least the teachers around here.
There was also a hippie-esque influence on US Tai Chi (I'm sure you're familiar with a similar thing in Yoga in the US). That type is a little more Qi Gong, balance your chi, meditative, get in tune with the universe kind of orientation. These types of classes are very non-martial, even if they demo applications or include push-hands practice, IME.
Because of some research that showed Tai Chi as helping balance and some other physical function in the elderly or disabled, there are now also "Tai Chi for Arthritis" classes and that sort of thing.
The style I was trained in, a lineage via Taiwan but not gym class, is taught as a martial art. There is not huge respect for the actual body mechanics of the more exclusively Qi Gong/general exercise teachings, though - hereabouts, at least - teachers in the various sub-types are mutually respectful.
It's a loaded question for me because the 5.3 METS idea may apply to Tai Chi taught as an actual martial art; some people learning applications or push-hands drills in addition to form believe they're being taught a martial art (because that's how the teacher presents it), but that's still probably a 2.5-ish METS kind of thing; and those classes doing form only are usually not pushing the body mechanics or drills that would make the form go much beyond the gentle stretching METS (2.0-ish or a bit over) or METS for various other standing-with-slow-movement daily life stuff. But some of the people who follow the more Qi Gong style types, perhaps especially those with teachers who do show applications, are likely to feel somewhat sensitive to perceived slights to their practice. Saying "it's not 5.3 METS" is probably a slight.
Thanks! Using 3 METS in https://www.straighthealthcare.com/calorie-calculator.html I am within 1 calorie of my "Classical Stretch" category.
But I think 3 METS is high for both the Tai Chi and Classical Stretch I do, which do seem to be more towards the elderly or disabled spectrum than a martial art (as I've seen on TV.)
This explains why I can't eat 100% of my exercise calories. In the past, I've resolved this by leaving some calories on the table, but after this convo will tweak my entry. (At some point, lol.)
Re the bolded in your Spoiler: I'm a certified (but not currently practicing) yoga teacher, and I do get irritated when people make blanket statements about yoga, for example, "Yoga doesn't burn calories" but am fine with qualified statements like "Some forms of yoga don't burn a significant amount of calories." People who say the former have clearly never taken an Ashtanga class.
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Retroguy2000 wrote: »
They have Tai Chi there.kshama2001 wrote: »I was thinking of this thread this AM when I did Tai Chi. The classes I've taken, from a variety of teachers, all seem to expend the equivalent of my "Classical Stretch" creation than the higher value of the database's Tai Chi.
I went to a few categories in https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home and cannot find Tai Chi - do you have a suggestion of something similar?
ETA: I wonder if MFP is using "martial arts, different types, slower pace, novice performers, practice" - 5.3 METS?
Two entries, 1.5 and 3.0. I was going to say if this wasn't listed, that 5.3 seemed high based on my admittedly extremely low knowledge of tai chi. From what I've seen on TV shows and movies it looks more slower paced like yoga than say Cobra Kai.
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/Activity-Categories/sports
Thanks! It did not occur to me to look in Sports 0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »
Thanks! Using 3 METS in https://www.straighthealthcare.com/calorie-calculator.html I am within 1 calorie of my "Classical Stretch" category.
But I think 3 METS is high for both the Tai Chi and Classical Stretch I do, which do seem to be more towards the elderly or disabled spectrum than a martial art (as I've seen on TV.)
This explains why I can't eat 100% of my exercise calories. In the past, I've resolved this by leaving some calories on the table, but after this convo will tweak my entry. (At some point, lol.)
Re the bolded in your Spoiler: I'm a certified (but not currently practicing) yoga teacher, and I do get irritated when people make blanket statements about yoga, for example, "Yoga doesn't burn calories" but am fine with qualified statements like "Some forms of yoga don't burn a significant amount of calories." People who say the former have clearly never taken an Ashtanga class.
Yes, iIf you can find an activity in the Compendium that's similar to what you're doing, you can use the METS from the Compendium and a calculator like the one you linked to get a starting calorie value for a custom exercise. The METS values aren't perfect, and picking a similar activity from the Compendium can have some subjective bias, but it's not a crazy way to go, and not time-consuming. I should've mentioned that approach in my PP.
After setting up the custom exercise with an initial calorie value, MFP will use your minutes and body weight at future uses to scale the estimate, so finding a similar activity & estimating calories directly from METS is a one-time effort.
P.S. Quotes snipped out of context above because I messed up the quote tags and couldn't figure out where.0 -
On the other hand, looks like I've been underestimating my walk/hike in the woods.
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/Activity-Categories/walking "hiking or walking at a normal pace through fields and hillsides" is a 5.3 MET. How I've been figuring it is by adding MFP's "Hiking, cross country" to any time over what it would have taken me to do my normal 3 mph on flat. For example, I did 2.6 miles in 72 minutes - I'm slower due to the hills, which are harder work.
But 72 minutes at 5.3 MET on https://www.straighthealthcare.com/calorie-calculator.html gives me more calories than 52 minutes of "Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace" plus 20 minutes of "Hiking, cross country."0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »No, but you can create an exercise and assign it a calorie amount. Also, eating back all of your exercise calories doesn't cancel anything out. You selected a goal of X Lbs per week loss and MFP gave you a calorie target WITHOUT exercise to accomplish that. Not accounting for exercise can create a deficit that is overly large and unhealthy.
If I tell MFP I want to lose 1 Lb per week I'll get a calorie target of 1900 (before exercise) which means MFP is estimating my maintenance calories (before exercise) to be 2400. Now lets say I exercise and burn 400 calories...I can eat those back and maintain the established deficit by eating 2300 calories because my maintenance number would have also increased to 2400+400=2,800. 2,800-2,300=500 calorie deficit still.
Yes, I created my own exercise for several activities.
I only use "Gardening, general" when I am doing something intense like digging with a shovel (as opposed to a trowel.) I created "Gardening, moderate" to use for less intense gardening.
I created "Classical Stretch" by averaging the calories given for "Stretching, hatha yoga" and "Calisthenics, home, light/moderate effort."
You do that here: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/new or after searching the exercise database and not finding what you're looking for.
@joemjr2 the calories at the gym might include your "just being alive" calories when what you want is just the intentional exercise calories on top of that. If you use values from MFP, what do you get? For example, compare the calories you get from the treadmill with MFP's "Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace" (or whatever speed you use.) If the treadmill is higher, use MFP.
Under the covers, MFP is using the METS method of estimating exercise calories, which is a research-based thing.
Another option for estimating calories for your own activities (using METS) is to see if researchers have estimated or calculated average METS for your exercise. This is a quite-comprehensive source:
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home
With that information, you can either use the METS value to estimate calories (if you like math), or (if you don't like math) find an exercise in MFP's database that has a similar METS value to the research estimate for your activity.
Once you create a custom exercise with a calorie estimate, MFP will scale that estimate for you automagically each time you use your custom exercise, adjusting the calories based on the number of minutes you exercise and your currently-recorded body weight in MFP. (That is, you only need to go through the more complex steps in the preceding paragraph once per exercise type.)
As an aside, I'd mention that this is a good source for calorie estimates for walking/running - likely better than the MFP estimates - if you make it a point to select "net" in the energy box.
https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
@AnnPT77 thanks! I was thinking of this thread this AM when I did Tai Chi. The classes I've taken, from a variety of teachers, all seem to expend the equivalent of my "Classical Stretch" creation than the higher value of the database's Tai Chi.
I went to a few categories in https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home and cannot find Tai Chi - do you have a suggestion of something similar?
ETA: I wonder if MFP is using "martial arts, different types, slower pace, novice performers, practice" - 5.3 METS?
Oh, man . . . that is such a super loaded question for me. (The reason is even more off topic to the thread than this sub-discussion, but I'll explain in a spoiler at the end.)
In the Compendium, there is "tai chi, qi gong, sitting, light effort", code 15672. Without actually reading the research (since that's color-coded as a research-supported one), that's probably all intended to be sitting-only. at 1.5 METS. There's also "tai chi, qi gong, general" code 15620 at 3.0 METS.
Purely subjective opinion - as someone who's done a lot of Tai Chi BTW - I think your intuition is correct: that Tai Chi as taught in most classes is more like your "Classic Stretch" thing, calorically, if I'm guessing right about MFP's underpinnings. To me, somewhere 2-2.5 METS seems reasonable for a typical class or video, maybe closer to 3.0 in rare cases.
The Compendium has Hatha Yoga (02150) at 2.5 METS, Mild stretching at 2.3, Light Calisthenics at 2.8. (MFP may be using the 2000 Compendium values rather than the 2011, don't know, haven't tried to do the back math or docs research to figure that out.)My late husband was a Tai Chi and kung fu teacher, and I practiced regularly myself for around 8 years, though never as seriously as he.
Tai Chi originated as a serious martial art, in which the slow forms practice is primarily a way of retraining movement patterns (oversimplifying a little), because the Tai Chi body mechanics for sensing and power generation are . . . unusual, compared to average people's typical movement patterns.
In more recent times, Tai Chi has sort of bifurcated into two general streams:
The smaller one (in the US at least) is still teaching a serious martial art. Those practices include
substantially more vigorous activity, drills and sparring, plus faster-paced applications practice, in addition to the slow forms practice. Chen style is more likely to be like this, though some Yang lineages (and possibly smaller others) are still teaching as a martial art.
The larger stream is non-martial, and includes quite a few intermingled flavors, potentially. In general, it's more a Qi Gong type of practice, or a general exercise practice. Tai Chi is taught in the equivalent of gym classes in Taiwan (and probably mainland China, though I'm less familiar with that). Chinese teachers of Tai Chi are extra valued in the US, and IME a bunch of them in community ed programs learned Tai Chi in gym class or something similar - at least the teachers around here.
There was also a hippie-esque influence on US Tai Chi (I'm sure you're familiar with a similar thing in Yoga in the US). That type is a little more Qi Gong, balance your chi, meditative, get in tune with the universe kind of orientation. These types of classes are very non-martial, even if they demo applications or include push-hands practice, IME.
Because of some research that showed Tai Chi as helping balance and some other physical function in the elderly or disabled, there are now also "Tai Chi for Arthritis" classes and that sort of thing.
The style I was trained in, a lineage via Taiwan but not gym class, is taught as a martial art. There is not huge respect for the actual body mechanics of the more exclusively Qi Gong/general exercise teachings, though - hereabouts, at least - teachers in the various sub-types are mutually respectful.
It's a loaded question for me because the 5.3 METS idea may apply to Tai Chi taught as an actual martial art; some people learning applications or push-hands drills in addition to form believe they're being taught a martial art (because that's how the teacher presents it), but that's still probably a 2.5-ish METS kind of thing; and those classes doing form only are usually not pushing the body mechanics or drills that would make the form go much beyond the gentle stretching METS (2.0-ish or a bit over) or METS for various other standing-with-slow-movement daily life stuff. But some of the people who follow the more Qi Gong style types, perhaps especially those with teachers who do show applications, are likely to feel somewhat sensitive to perceived slights to their practice. Saying "it's not 5.3 METS" is probably a slight.
Thanks! Using 3 METS in https://www.straighthealthcare.com/calorie-calculator.html I am within 1 calorie of my "Classical Stretch" category.
But I think 3 METS is high for both the Tai Chi and Classical Stretch I do, which do seem to be more towards the elderly or disabled spectrum than a martial art (as I've seen on TV.)
This explains why I can't eat 100% of my exercise calories. In the past, I've resolved this by leaving some calories on the table, but after this convo will tweak my entry. (At some point, lol.)
[snip]
So I've just had my Sunday Tai Chi class and created an entry using 2.75 METS. Looks like MFP's entry uses 3.9 METS. I'll miss those extra calories but they did always feel too high.1 -
When MFP gives you a calorie goal it's already at a deficit from your maintenance calories.
Even if you ate back 100 percent of what you burned with intentional exercise --- you are still at a deficit.
I understand maybe wanting to not eat back 100% of them. I'd suggest eating back 50-100% depending on how hungry you are. But I don't think there is a way to change that in MFP....you just have to do that math in your head.0
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