Exercise Tracking

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tmasterson78
tmasterson78 Posts: 3 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I am new to MyFitnessPal and so far I am loving it. However, I have a questions about tracking exercise. I have been walking (pushing her in a stroller) with my daughter for the past week. I want to track my exercise so I have been putting in my time and how much I walked and it calculates the calories I burned, great. My issue is I recently searched and found an exercise of pushing a stroller, so I put that information in there too but the calories burned are less? This does not make sense to me. Any suggestions on how I can get accurate calories burned while pushing a stroller walking 3 miles an hour at a brisk pace?

Replies

  • usmcwifeb15
    usmcwifeb15 Posts: 470 Member
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    Honestly your best bet is to buy a Heart Rate Monitor. I love mine! I have a Polar F6 and it tells me every calorie i burn so I trust it to be pretty dang close. As for the calorie burn being less I know that is wrong because when I push the stroller I always burn more then when I don't.
  • abbie017
    abbie017 Posts: 410
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    The best way to track calories is to get a heartrate monitor. MFP really overestimates the calories you burn!
  • marquesajen
    marquesajen Posts: 641
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    Well, first off, do you walk faster with the stroller or when you're walking alone? Even though you're pushing some weight the site might assume you're walking slowly enough that it negates that.
  • MisterDubs303
    MisterDubs303 Posts: 1,216 Member
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    Different sites calculate differently. Unless you use a heart rate monitor, its hard to tell exactly how many you are burning. This is a topic that comes up quite a bit, but I don't know that there is a solution. I suggest just finding a website that looks reliable that has some kind of calculator in it that takes into account your weight, speed, time, etc. and go with it. Once you input a new exercise into your MFP account, it will adopt your data and properly calculate adjustments (if you walk longer, etc.).
  • Jemmuno
    Jemmuno Posts: 413 Member
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    A heart rate monitor that counts calories will give you the most accurate results. A lot of the numbers on MFP are inflated. When I workout on an excercise machine I usually take the number off the machine not what MFP says. Calories have to do a lot with how tall you are and how much weigh. I would use the lower of the two numbers or average them for an estimate its really up to you.
  • Dabbles
    Dabbles Posts: 367
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    The most accurate way would be borrow a HRM to see what you're actually burning. Then just use that. Pushing a stroller is a lot more of a workout. I push over 80lbs of youngins sometimes lol. Can't wait till it cools off some and they can walk more with me.
  • SupaFIL
    SupaFIL Posts: 1
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    I workout 3 times/week and ride my bike 5-10 miles daily, but I stopped tracking exercise. I agree with a number of people on this forum: the numbers on here are terribly inflated. A marathon runner will burn roughly 2600 calories during 26.2 miles of constant grueling effort (4 hours give or take). There's no way my 30 minute bursts of moderate bike-riding will burn 500 calories or more.

    Stop tracking your exercise and don't give yourself extra calories to burn. I saw no loss (despite eating regularly and well) until I stopped tracking. Keep your numbers close to your goals. Get out there and keep moving.

    And yes...a heart monitor would definitely help. Good Luck!!

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