Water jogging, 1,143 cal burned seams wrong

mandimahoney5
mandimahoney5 Posts: 93
in Fitness and Exercise
Let's face it I am a big girl. 250 lb. I usually go to the gym and do laps jogging for 1-1.5 hour.

I start using MFP app and I put in 75 minutes for today. It calculated 1,143 cal burned. It was 15 cal per minute. This seams too much.

Is the amount. Excuse of my weight? Or is it this high for everyone ?

Replies

  • itsbasschick
    itsbasschick Posts: 1,584 Member
    are you using a heart rate monitor? if so, you could use this and see how it compares
    http://www.calories-calculator.net/Calories_Burned_By_Heart_Rate.html
  • Betherz82
    Betherz82 Posts: 200 Member
    I looked to see what it would say for me, if I were to do 75 minutes of water jogging MFP says I would burn over 1600 calories if that helps you at all. And btw, I'm 110 lbs more than you are.
  • Mykaelous
    Mykaelous Posts: 231 Member
    Well if you were 250 lb's of muscle with 6-12 % body fat it wouldn't be too far off. The problem is that most calorific expenditure studies are done on collegiate or Olympic level athletes(mostly male) with low amounts of fat and high VO2 max's weighing around 160 lb's and then scaled to your weight.

    If you get a good heart rate monitor that allows you to input your gender, weight, body fat, and height then you can get fairly accurate estimates for specific types of cardiovascular exercise, outside of that the results will be dubious. Take a look at

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1348299-snap-i-have-been-wrong-about-calorie-burns
  • alicia0412
    alicia0412 Posts: 165 Member
    Yeah, that seems extremely high. I lurk on these forums a lot and most people agree that MFP waaaay overestimates the amount of calories burned. If you're someone who tends to eat back their exercise calories, eat no more than half until you have a HRM to correctly calculate the amount burned. Hope this was helpful!
  • FatFreeFrolicking
    FatFreeFrolicking Posts: 4,252 Member
    MFP overestimates calories burned by A LOT.

    If you want the most accurate estimate of how many calories you burned, buy a heart rate monitor.
  • Jessie24330
    Jessie24330 Posts: 224 Member
    I don't have a HRM but I do sometimes use a heart rate calculator and the heart rate supplied by whichever cardio machine I was using and the numbers are generally about 1/2 of what MFP calculates. Just FYI.
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
    A lot of HRMs do not transmit in water so if you do plan on buying one for this reason, I'd do my research. Another note - many are 'waterproof' or "water resistant", that does not mean they transmit in water, it just means you can get them wet.

    How are you water jogging? I ask because I was recently talking to a friend, an endurance athlete, who had a bike crash and is currently recovering and using water jogging to maintain fitness. I believe there may be more than one interpretation of what "water jogging" is. It can be a quite intense workout, or it can be lower intensity. From his description, 1 - 1 1/2 hours would be an extremely difficult workout. Depending on which one you are doing will affect your calorie burn. Unfortunatley, the description doesn't clarify but I suspect it is based on a max effort type of workout which would be difficult to sustain for long periods of time.
    Also weight does play a role in MFP's calorie estimate.

    TL;DR, it is rather high and I suspect not a correct estimate. Keep in mind the more generalized the description, the less likely it is to be accurate. A rather good explanation.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/estimating-calories-activity-databases-198041
  • RHachicho
    RHachicho Posts: 1,115 Member
    Hmm this is actually a good question. MFP includes your weight in the calculation. And believe me for exercises like running/jogging/walking the weight can increase your caloric burn by a surprising amount. However in the water quite a bit of your weight is offset. I wonder if it takes that into account.
  • mandimahoney5
    mandimahoney5 Posts: 93
    No I tend to try not to eat my exercise calories, but they are helpful that one day i need chocolate :)
    I am not using monitors or any thing. Just a standard jog, moving arms, occasionally switching to backward movement.
    I ended up checking water arobics, and it calculates if I did that for 75 minutes 571 calories. Hummmmm wonder if I should track it this way instead.
    Yeah, that seems extremely high. I lurk on these forums a lot and most people agree that MFP waaaay overestimates the amount of calories burned. If you're someone who tends to eat back their exercise calories, eat no more than half until you have a HRM to correctly calculate the amount burned. Hope this was helpful!
  • RangerRN507
    RangerRN507 Posts: 124 Member
    MFP generally overestimates calories used
  • mandimahoney5
    mandimahoney5 Posts: 93
    I have decided to use
    Swimming, freestyle, light/ moderate effort.
    This gives me 1000 cal burned for the 75 minutes of water jogging
  • Laurenloveswaffles
    Laurenloveswaffles Posts: 535 Member
    I have decided to use
    Swimming, freestyle, light/ moderate effort.
    This gives me 1000 cal burned for the 75 minutes of water jogging

    I wouldn't even log that. I would log about 500 calories max.
  • simplydelish2
    simplydelish2 Posts: 726 Member
    Yeah, that seems extremely high. I lurk on these forums a lot and most people agree that MFP waaaay overestimates the amount of calories burned. If you're someone who tends to eat back their exercise calories, eat no more than half until you have a HRM to correctly calculate the amount burned. Hope this was helpful!

    I agree with this...MFP way overestimates calorie burn. So if you eat your calories back - don't eat anymore than half. I find that I tend to burn on average 10 calories per minute...and I'm just a bit larger than you.

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