how do I log my swimming and Tai Chi activity?

Idontgiveupeasily

hullo
I do various exercises but don't know how to use the app to document these, ok for walking and gum workouts but also swim and go to tai chi classes

lynn_glenmont

Logging exercise is at the bottom of the diary page in the (Android) app, and on its own tab on the website. If you can't find a particular exercise when you search for it, you can create it. A METS database might help you pin down calories burned from a given activity. Personally, I wouldn't worry about calories burned from Tai chi.

Idontgiveupeasily

Thanks

AnnPT77

Personally, I'd log the Tai Chi, too. It's not a big number, but it's exercise, even though it's slow. People log stretching, Hatha yoga, slow weight lifting, slow bodyweight exercise, etc.

(Have I ever done Tai Chi? Yes, fairly seriously and steadily for around 8 years. My late husband was a Tai Chi teacher; I was staff advisor to the local university's Tai Chi and Kung Fu Club for a while, too. Different styles and routines vary quite a lot, but it's exercise.)

IMO, the best way for most people to log exercise is to use a fitness tracker that has a robust interface with MFP, and wear it as close to 24x7 as recharging allows. Yes, those are not accurate for everyone, but the good brand/models tend to be pretty close for a majority of people (people whose calorie needs fall close to statistical averages), and trackers/MFP will adjust for daily life activity as well as intentional exercise.

If you do use one of those, turn negative adjustments on in MFP, and monitor weight/calories carefully for 4-6 weeks (as new calorie counters should do, tracker or no). That will tell you how close MFP's estimates and the tracker's adjustments are for you, based on comparing that multi-week personalized average intake and exercise.

Best wishes!

sollyn23l2

"good brand/models tend to be pretty close for a majority of people"

Not exactly true. Even the "best" brands tend to be pretty dramatically off. Really, the fitness trackers are about as good as spitting out a random guess, statistically speaking.

AnnPT77

sollyn23l2 wrote: »

"good brand/models tend to be pretty close for a majority of people"

Not exactly true. Even the "best" brands tend to be pretty dramatically off. Really, the fitness trackers are about as good as spitting out a random guess, statistically speaking.

The statistics I've seen suggest otherwise, as do quite a few posts I've seen here. I'm talking about all day 24x7 numbers over longer time periods here, not just snippets. I'd have to redo the reading I did, which I won't, but my pathetic memory suggests that 50-70%ish or so of decent brands are reasonably close on that basis, better than "calorie calculator" estimates. There isn't much relevant research, though. Many of the studies showing huge error IIRC looked at snippets, like individual exercise sessions or short time periods. I'm talking about averages over periods of time.

Even with a tracker, doing the 4-6 week (whole menstrual cycles) experiment is vital.

My tracker, as I've said before, is off by 25-30% for me, as compared with around 9 years of pretty careful logging experience. Here's an important thing, though: The level of error, averaged over time, stays in that range.

Some people here set up spreadsheets and compared their tracker's estimate over time to their actual intake/weight changes, and found that though the estimate was not accurate for them, the percentage error over time was reasonably consistent. They could use that information to recognize that if they ate that X% more or less than their tracker estimate, things worked out pretty well.

I never did that, because I had maintenance calories and maintenance habits dialed in pretty well before I got the tracker. (Well, it's actually been two trackers so far, both off by about the same percentage.) If I weren't lazy, I'd probably run that experiment, because I think that if I monitored the difference between my tracker estimate and my calorie/weight data over a couple of months, I could derive a useful adjustment percentage that I could apply going forward. I just don't care, don't bother, because what I'm doing is working.

The tracker gives an estimate, of course, not a measurement. (It's a more nuanced estimate than a calorie calculator, but it's still an estimate.) It can be treated in exactly the same way as a calorie-calculator starting estimate, i.e., run the experiment for several weeks, and use the results to adjust calories. The difference is that because it's more nuanced, it can be used as described above, because it will "see" activity changes over time, unlike the calculator estimates.

I don't know what your statistics background is, and it may be much better than mine. There's a thing in statistics called the "law of large numbers". It doesn't actually apply in this case, but I think something conceptually similar potentially does, maybe call it the "squishy law of medium numbers". Some of the aspects of calorie expenditure will probably be over-estimated, some under-estimated. The long run average of those estimates may converge nearer the actual value than the error involved in each of those individual parts, or at least near a value to which a consistent adjustment factor can be applied to get a useful number.

YMMV - clearly does.

sollyn23l2

AnnPT77 wrote: »

sollyn23l2 wrote: »

"good brand/models tend to be pretty close for a majority of people"

Not exactly true. Even the "best" brands tend to be pretty dramatically off. Really, the fitness trackers are about as good as spitting out a random guess, statistically speaking.

The statistics I've seen suggest otherwise, as do quite a few posts I've seen here. I'm talking about all day 24x7 numbers over longer time periods here, not just snippets. I'd have to redo the reading I did, which I won't, but my pathetic memory suggests that 50-70%ish or so of decent brands are reasonably close on that basis, better than "calorie calculator" estimates. There isn't much relevant research, though. Many of the studies showing huge error IIRC looked at snippets, like individual exercise sessions or short time periods. I'm talking about averages over periods of time.

Even with a tracker, doing the 4-6 week (whole menstrual cycles) experiment is vital.

My tracker, as I've said before, is off by 25-30% for me, as compared with around 9 years of pretty careful logging experience. Here's an important thing, though: The level of error, averaged over time, stays in that range.

Some people here set up spreadsheets and compared their tracker's estimate over time to their actual intake/weight changes, and found that though the estimate was not accurate for them, the percentage error over time was reasonably consistent. They could use that information to recognize that if they ate that X% more or less than their tracker estimate, things worked out pretty well.

I never did that, because I had maintenance calories and maintenance habits dialed in pretty well before I got the tracker. (Well, it's actually been two trackers so far, both off by about the same percentage.) If I weren't lazy, I'd probably run that experiment, because I think that if I monitored the difference between my tracker estimate and my calorie/weight data over a couple of months, I could derive a useful adjustment percentage that I could apply going forward. I just don't care, don't bother, because what I'm doing is working.

The tracker gives an estimate, of course, not a measurement. (It's a more nuanced estimate than a calorie calculator, but it's still an estimate.) It can be treated in exactly the same way as a calorie-calculator starting estimate, i.e., run the experiment for several weeks, and use the results to adjust calories. The difference is that because it's more nuanced, it can be used as described above, because it will "see" activity changes over time, unlike the calculator estimates.

I don't know what your statistics background is, and it may be much better than mine. There's a thing in statistics called the "law of large numbers". It doesn't actually apply in this case, but I think something conceptually similar potentially does, maybe call it the "squishy law of medium numbers". Some of the aspects of calorie expenditure will probably be over-estimated, some under-estimated. The long run average of those estimates may converge nearer the actual value than the error involved in each of those individual parts, or at least near a value to which a consistent adjustment factor can be applied to get a useful number.

YMMV - clearly does.

I'm not trying to argue, just pointing out that blindly trusting a tracker may not be the best idea. And yes, consistency can definitely trump accuracy as long as it's consistently off the same amount.

AnnPT77

@sollyn23l2, believe it or not, I'm not trying to argue either . . . just trying to clarify why I said what I did. You're correct - and I know it - that many of the studies show trackers being off by large amounts in the main types of research that have been done on them.