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Question...

luvforever
luvforever Posts: 502 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I'm fairly new to MFP (okay, not really new to it, but within my first couple of months of actually tracking and using it steadily). I just started going to the gym for the first time in my life basically (I went about 3 times in the year I had a YMCA membership 10 years ago-this past month has been the most consistent exercise I've ever done).

Today I was reading around more and saw a lot of things saying that the exercise calories given on here are not accurate. So my question is-where do I get that information? I use the numbers on the treadmill and they have been less when I enter them in MFP (partially because I do incline that I can't figure out how to report in MFP) but the elliptcal I use doesn't accurately provide me a number.

Replies

  • Fit_Fox88
    Fit_Fox88 Posts: 410 Member
    Most of the machine calories will tend to over estimate burns as well as MFP. You can purchase a heart rate monitor with a chest strap that counts calorie burn to get a more accurate reading (you'll input all of your personal information into the watch). From reading various forums on here, I've found that a lot of people will enter their workouts from MFP or the machines but then will only eat back 1/2 of their exercise calories to account for the over estimation.
  • thavoice
    thavoice Posts: 1,326 Member
    I'm fairly new to MFP (okay, not really new to it, but within my first couple of months of actually tracking and using it steadily). I just started going to the gym for the first time in my life basically (I went about 3 times in the year I had a YMCA membership 10 years ago-this past month has been the most consistent exercise I've ever done).

    Today I was reading around more and saw a lot of things saying that the exercise calories given on here are not accurate. So my question is-where do I get that information? I use the numbers on the treadmill and they have been less when I enter them in MFP (partially because I do incline that I can't figure out how to report in MFP) but the elliptcal I use doesn't accurately provide me a number.
    The machines dont give you an accurate measure either.

    That is why i dont track exercise in terms of calories burned, only to track my improvements, and dont eat the cals back.

    but.....this site is set up to eat them back...I just ignore it
  • luvforever
    luvforever Posts: 502 Member
    Thank you both! I generally don't eat them anyhow, so if I feel I need to I'll stick to only half. I appreciate the help! I might have to look into a heart rate monitor at a later time too.
  • vcdfw
    vcdfw Posts: 49
    Depending on how much exercise you're doing and close you are to your goal you might just want to look at your calories burned for your height, age and weight at a sedentary rate... cut those calories by 500 a day and you're on track to lose 1 lb a week. Add an additional 500 calories burned in exercise a day and you're up to 2lbs a week.

    Personally I get some crazy numbers with MFP talking to my Garmin Connect account and vise versa so I know under 2K calories is my personal daily caloric goal and at least 45 min of additional cardio and I'm on track. I remember on day it showed me that my net caloric intake was 19 calories even though I had eaten 1850 because it thought my 1.5hrs of cardio that day was worth over 1,100 calories. Which may have totally been true but I figured I'd rather than the burn than the additional food.

    Hope this helps.

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