I have a hard time tracking exercise accurately!

joannahecker2

Hi. This is my first post on the message boards... Let's see how it goes!

I've been using MFP for several months to track my foods, and when I'm honest and diligent about tracking everything that I eat, it does work. (At least, as honest and diligent as I can be; I'm finding that it's impossible to be 100% precise in our estimates of some foods, particularly when we eat in restaurants or at someone else's home - or even, sometimes, with home cooking. The easiest tracking is when we're eating processed, packaged, industrial and commercial foods - which are, of course, the very worst kinds of foods to eat, in general terms. I avoid them as much as possible. But I digress.)

My main difficulty comes with tracking exercise - calories burned - with MFP. My physical activity consists of ashtanga yoga, six days a week for about an hour per session, plus a lot of walking in my daily life. I have a dog, and I live in a very hilly European city without a car, so walking is just a normal part of my routine. I can track how many minutes I am walking in a given day, more or less, but I can't really keep track of how fast I am walking. I'm not on a treadmill with digital gauges; I'm out there in the world, with distractions and detours and no means by which to measure my progress. I'm speeding up, slowing down, stopping, going uphill, going downhill.

Any pointers on how to track this kind of activity? I think I over-estimated it for a while, resulting in some minor weight regain; sometimes I suspect I also under-estimate it, which results in plateaus.

My calorie allowance for weight loss is very low - just 1200 calories per day - so the exercise calories really make a huge difference, and I'd love to be able to use this feature of MFP more effectively.

Thanks!

melaniecheeks

Did you put your activity level as "sedentary" when you first plugged in yoru figures? I'd change that to "active", and that covers you for all that walking. That'll give you a bit more than 1200 to play with as well. But you wont get to eat those calories back, sorry!

tadpole242

Hi. This is my first post on the message boards... Let's see how it goes!

I've been using MFP for several months to track my foods, and when I'm honest and diligent about tracking everything that I eat, it does work. (At least, as honest and diligent as I can be; I'm finding that it's impossible to be 100% precise in our estimates of some foods, particularly when we eat in restaurants or at someone else's home - or even, sometimes, with home cooking. The easiest tracking is when we're eating processed, packaged, industrial and commercial foods - which are, of course, the very worst kinds of foods to eat, in general terms. I avoid them as much as possible. But I digress.)

My main difficulty comes with tracking exercise - calories burned - with MFP. My physical activity consists of ashtanga yoga, six days a week for about an hour per session, plus a lot of walking in my daily life. I have a dog, and I live in a very hilly European city without a car, so walking is just a normal part of my routine. I can track how many minutes I am walking in a given day, more or less, but I can't really keep track of how fast I am walking. I'm not on a treadmill with digital gauges; I'm out there in the world, with distractions and detours and no means by which to measure my progress. I'm speeding up, slowing down, stopping, going uphill, going downhill.

Any pointers on how to track this kind of activity? I think I over-estimated it for a while, resulting in some minor weight regain; sometimes I suspect I also under-estimate it, which results in plateaus.

My calorie allowance for weight loss is very low - just 1200 calories per day - so the exercise calories really make a huge difference, and I'd love to be able to use this feature of MFP more effectively.

Thanks!

Do you have a smart phone? if so download Strava, it can use gps to track you, and tell you how far and how fast you are walking. it alongside a HRM will be more accurate than MFP. (HRM work on your Heart rate so walking faster will make for a more accurate burn.)