Completely Confused

arcticbutterfly

I lap swim. 2000yards in an hour. I used their calculator and just plugged in what type of exercise I chose freestyle swim light/moderate and 60 minutes and that is what it gave me.
Like I said I am really confused.

Yayy swimming! ignore all the neighsayers. They don't swim. And it burns calories like crazy!! I swim too if you can't tell ;-) We have a Swimmers! group. You should join us if you haven't already. For swimming it's a whole day thing for me. I eat more calories at breakfast, add a glass of milk or a piece of toast. Not much but it helps I can't swim if I've not eaten enough. Then before swimming a little snack, nuts, dried fruit, cheese stick, something. After swimming lunch, heavy on protein. Usually large because I'm starving. Then an afternoon snack with a smoothie of some kind or milk if I didn't have some earlier in the day. Dinner is usually my splurge for the week, we'll do pizza or spaghetti something higher calorie that normally I couldn't enjoy. And after all that I usually have 600-800 calories left. I might have a treat of some kind but I never eat all the calories back.

Swimming is awesome. But remember as you lose weight you will burn less so if you swim now you get to splurge but later it will be less. But always something to be proud of!

tinkermommc

When you say you lap swim. Are you constantly at it for a whole hour? My kids swimming coach says swimming doesn't eat up that many calories. An hour of breastroke give 848 calories according to MFP but the swim coach says it more like half of that. To get what you got, you must have been doing frontcrawl or butterfly the whole 60 minutes non stop and probably more. I reckon 600 calories would be more like it for a constant hours swim. But I'm no profesional.

Efficiency. Hopefully he is more efficient...

arcticbutterfly

I lap swim. 2000yards in an hour. I used their calculator and just plugged in what type of exercise I chose freestyle swim light/moderate and 60 minutes and that is what it gave me.
Like I said I am really confused.

Yayy swimming! ignore all the neighsayers. They don't swim. And it burns calories like crazy!! I swim too if you can't tell ;-) We have a Swimmers! group. You should join us if you haven't already. For swimming it's a whole day thing for me. I eat more calories at breakfast, add a glass of milk or a piece of toast. Not much but it helps I can't swim if I've not eaten enough. Then before swimming a little snack, nuts, dried fruit, cheese stick, something. After swimming lunch, heavy on protein. Usually large because I'm starving. Then an afternoon snack with a smoothie of some kind or milk if I didn't have some earlier in the day. Dinner is usually my splurge for the week, we'll do pizza or spaghetti something higher calorie that normally I couldn't enjoy. And after all that I usually have 600-800 calories left. I might have a treat of some kind but I never eat all the calories back.

Swimming is awesome. But remember as you lose weight you will burn less so if you swim now you get to splurge but later it will be less. But always something to be proud of!

Yes, I do swim, almost every day some weeks. you cant burn 1411 doing any kind of swimmimg in an hour.

LizKurz

I lap swim. 2000yards in an hour. I used their calculator and just plugged in what type of exercise I chose freestyle swim light/moderate and 60 minutes and that is what it gave me.
Like I said I am really confused.

Hrm...I find this odd. I lap swim three times a week. I can do 1760 yards in about 47 minutes. And I only burn around 600 each session. I'm also 190 lbs so it's not like I'm small.....maybe go back and make sure you've logged it correctly?

LizKurz

When you say you lap swim. Are you constantly at it for a whole hour? My kids swimming coach says swimming doesn't eat up that many calories. An hour of breastroke give 848 calories according to MFP but the swim coach says it more like half of that. To get what you got, you must have been doing frontcrawl or butterfly the whole 60 minutes non stop and probably more. I reckon 600 calories would be more like it for a constant hours swim. But I'm no profesional.

This. I burn about that, (though hubby is getting me a HR montior so I can know for sure) doing just under an hour of non stop constant front crawl laps.

Chipmaniac

1400 calories isn't as extreme as people seem to think. I can burn 1500 in two hours, but I go high intensity all the time. If you are doing exercises where the effort varies by the weight of the person, a heavier person can rack up calories fast.

That said, I never use MFP's estimate. They are always high. I use the machine's numbers as I always enter my weight and my experience is that at least the Precor machines are rather conservative relative to my HRM. If I'm exercising outside, I use the app Endomondo which estimates my calories and seems pretty accurate.

Last night I ran on a treadmill at the gym and over the course of 65 minutes I burned 860 calories. Normally, I don't use the HRM watch when the machine picks up my HR but this time I did. I was surprised to find that my HRM tracked the calories almost exactly with the machine within about +- 5 BMP. I was pretty impressed. However, I have experienced what felt like inflated numbers on other brand machines, e.g. Life Fitness.

LizKurz

Ok, I just noticed something, her ticker says she has zero pounds lost (obviously, she just started) and ends on 179lbs lost.

So, if shes 179 lbs overweight, then I could see burning 1400 cals in one hour of constant front crawl lap swimming, with no rests.

nineone1

Hooray for swimming! I do water aerobics for an hour and it says I burn 440 calories an hour and more often then not, I break a sweat (yes, in water). I put in "swimming, freestyle, moderate" for 60 minutes and it says I would burn 772.
I'm new here and am just learning so correct me if I'm wrong but won't the # of calories you burn depend on your current weight? Isn't a 300 lb. woman going to be burn a different amout then a 200 lb. woman?

Louise5152

I try not to use calories from exercise, that's when I do any lol, but if you,re burning that many I,m sure you can get away with eating a bit more

tinkermommc

Ok, I just noticed something, her ticker says she has zero pounds lost (obviously, she just started) and ends on 179lbs lost.

So, if shes 179 lbs overweight, then I could see burning 1400 cals in one hour of constant front crawl lap swimming, with no rests.

That's what I saw too. So I stick by what I said. Good luck!

Chipmaniac

Hooray for swimming! I do water aerobics for an hour and it says I burn 440 calories an hour and more often then not, I break a sweat (yes, in water). I put in "swimming, freestyle, moderate" for 60 minutes and it says I would burn 772.
I'm new here and am just learning so correct me if I'm wrong but won't the # of calories you burn depend on your current weight? Isn't a 300 lb. woman going to be burn a different amout then a 200 lb. woman?

Yes, a lot more.

tinkermommc

Hooray for swimming! I do water aerobics for an hour and it says I burn 440 calories an hour and more often then not, I break a sweat (yes, in water). I put in "swimming, freestyle, moderate" for 60 minutes and it says I would burn 772.
I'm new here and am just learning so correct me if I'm wrong but won't the # of calories you burn depend on your current weight? Isn't a 300 lb. woman going to be burn a different amout then a 200 lb. woman?

Exactly! I'm burning less and less calories every day ;-)

supermodelchic

Gotta ask what you did to burn 1,400 calories?

nmb0717

I bought a Heart Rate Monitor and come to find out I wasn't burning nearly as many calories as the tools on MFP said I did

Same here... I strongly suggest purchasing a HRM to wear during exercise and get a precise reading. MFP always overestimates calories burned.

TheWinman

Learn to reach you recommended net calorie goal. Netting 500 calories is no good.

cynthiaj777

I would definitely get a heart rate monitor for better accuracy. Just to give you an idea of how off MFP's calculator can be, my elliptical screen will say I burned about 330 calories in 30 minutes, but MFP will say it's more like 600. If I do eat any of my workout points, I do so as a last resort, and try not to eat more than 25% of them. Good luck!

And I bet with a HRM, I'd TRULY be burning 200 calories for 30 minutes. Machines and MFP WAY over estimate caloric burn.

Buy a HRM.

mariabee

Poor Azdak is going to kill me but...

Look up member "Azdak" and go to his blog... he is one of the most knowledgeable people on this site and in one way or another he has a blog for almost all of our questions, including "eating back exercise calories" and "heart rate monitors".

You may even want to "friend" him because he is just so knowledgeable that its inspiring (to me anyways :happy: )

Chipmaniac

I would definitely get a heart rate monitor for better accuracy. Just to give you an idea of how off MFP's calculator can be, my elliptical screen will say I burned about 330 calories in 30 minutes, but MFP will say it's more like 600. If I do eat any of my workout points, I do so as a last resort, and try not to eat more than 25% of them. Good luck!

And I bet with a HRM, I'd TRULY be burning 200 calories for 30 minutes. Machines and MFP WAY over estimate caloric burn.

Buy a HRM.

It depends on the machine. Some are bad, some others aren't. I would use a heart rate monitor and use the most conservative estimate.