Accuracy of MFP Calorie Counts for Exercise?

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BlackKat75
BlackKat75 Posts: 210 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I just downloaded an iPhone app to track my walking / running, and it also estimates calories burned from a particular workout. Today I walked 5.65 miles at a pace slightly above 4.5 mph. MFP has me burning over 500 calories for 77 minutes of walking at 4.5 mph. This other app has me burning fewer than 200!! Does MFP overstate calories burned through exercise?

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  • amycb03
    amycb03 Posts: 68 Member
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    In my personal opinion and with my personal experience, yes, I believe it does. I really noticed today when I logged my elliptical time and it gave me credit for over 570 calories burned in 45 minutes. The machine gave me credit for 475 and my BodyBugg gave me credit for 390. Out of all three, I believe the BodyBugg to be the most accurate. Most exercises that I've entered in the past week haven't been too off..but today's elliptical time was a big whammy.
  • airangel59
    airangel59 Posts: 1,887 Member
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    My Polar FT7 showed me at about 136 calories for recumbent biking for 35 minutes....MFP showed me about 333 (so did RunKeeper). Just glad I'm not eating back my calories.
  • redheaddee
    redheaddee Posts: 2,005 Member
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    Probably, which is why I underestimate my exercise. 2 hours hiking gets put in as 1.5 hrs, etc. A little added padding to help reduce my added padding =)
  • adam1885282
    adam1885282 Posts: 135 Member
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    I use runkeeper, which tends to give me more credit for some things and less for others than MFP does. I take the lowest of the two numbers.
  • sharleengc
    sharleengc Posts: 792 Member
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    I have found that the longer time I go, the farther apart MFP and any machine is. However, I have discovered that MFP is within 20-30 calories of my HRM but the machines are way higher (like 100+).

    Also, I have used the ipod fitness on my nanno and that has me burning about 50-100 more than my HRM...

    for me, MFP is closer than my ipod and machines.
  • BodyCombatGirl73
    BodyCombatGirl73 Posts: 96 Member
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    I just recently borrowed a friend's HRM and the other day I decided to check it against the pedometer app I have on my phone, and from wearing the HRM twice on my nightly dog walks, I would say that both MFP and the pedometer app over estimate by about 30%. However, I still lost all of the weight I wanted to, but probably because I never ate back all of my exercise calories while I was trying to lose (probably ate back 1/2 of them only). So, for now, I use my HRM calorie expenditures for all of my various exercises and once I have enough data for each type of class/work-out I do, I will feel confident in just using my average HRM numbers.

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