First time here

System
System Posts: 1,920 MFP Staff
edited July 7 in Fitness and Exercise
This discussion was created from comments split from: Tag Suggestions.

Replies

  • bevc796
    bevc796 Posts: 1 Member
    Hello. My first time here, although I’ve been using MFP for years and love it. One thing that I’d like to know more about is how, or where can we log golf as an exercise. I have read the many posts about whether it’s considered an exercise or not, especially while riding a cart, but being a golfer, I’m not interested in arguing that it definitely is. However, what I can’t figure out, is how I can post it as an activity, along with est calories burned. Anyone know? It should be listed as one of many exercises, as a good game, definitely leaves me feeling I’ve just had a good workout. It may not be cardio, but the dynamic movements required to turn the body just so, and swing the club to get maximum impact, definitely give you some great rotational and strength movements. So where and how can I long this? Thanks!
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    edited July 7
    bevc796 wrote: »
    Hello. My first time here, although I’ve been using MFP for years and love it. One thing that I’d like to know more about is how, or where can we log golf as an exercise. I have read the many posts about whether it’s considered an exercise or not, especially while riding a cart, but being a golfer, I’m not interested in arguing that it definitely is. However, what I can’t figure out, is how I can post it as an activity, along with est calories burned. Anyone know? It should be listed as one of many exercises, as a good game, definitely leaves me feeling I’ve just had a good workout. It may not be cardio, but the dynamic movements required to turn the body just so, and swing the club to get maximum impact, definitely give you some great rotational and strength movements. So where and how can I long this? Thanks!

    You can add a new "Exercise" to the database. The explanation is in "Help" ~

    https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/sections/360006006832-EXERCISE-DIARY-AND-EXERCISE-DATABASE

    or, there are lots of "Golf" entries already in the Exercise database, just type in GOLF under the Cardio section.
  • Hobartlemagne
    Hobartlemagne Posts: 603 Member
    This may be an answer better found on a golfing forum.
    If anyone is golfing while wearing a fitness tracker, they may have some data to share.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,617 Member
    MFP, under the covers, uses METS to estimate calorie burn (for the exercise database entries MFP itself created).

    METS are a research-based way of estimating that essentially allows the answer to be adjusted by body weight. There's a wealth of information about METS and the average METS for various activities at this site:

    https://pacompendium.com/

    Here are the METS values for various golfing scenarios from that source:

    15255 4.5 Golf, general
    15265 4.3 Golf, walking, carrying clubs
    15270 3.5 Golf, miniature, driving range
    15285 4.5 Golf, walking, pulling clubs
    15290 3.5 Golf, using power cart (Taylor Code 070)

    (That number in front is just the identifying code for that activity type.)

    You can then use a METS to calories calculator like this one to estimate calories for your body size:

    https://ergo.human.cornell.edu/MetsCaloriesCalculator/MetsCaloriesCalculator.htm

    For example, a 200-pound person golfing, walking, carrying clubs would be expected to burn around 391 calories per hour.

    You can use that estimate to create your own custom exercise in the MFP cardiovascular exercise database. After you set it up, MFP will scale future uses of your custom exercise based on the number of minutes you enter, and your then-current weight recorded in MFP. Therefore, you don't have to do the arithmetic yourself after you create your custom exercise.

    Note that it's still an estimate, but it's a reasonable way to estimate things for which there's a research-based METS estimate.

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