recording excercise accurately

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jacquelyndraper
jacquelyndraper Posts: 6
in Fitness and Exercise
Does anyone know why the food database is so large and accurate but the excercise database doesn't seem to have any of my excercises. I do workout dvd's daily and do a variety of them. I do walk away the pounds by Leslie Sansone, I do the biggest loser workouts, I do Jillian workouts, I do yoga and I do an workout on "the wave" by the firm. I get frustrated because these workouts are not in the excercise database and I really don't know how many calories I am burning. For example, the walk away the pounds workout is not just walking, the entire time you are lifting your knees, kicking back, using weights etc. So plugging in just plain walking doesnt really give me an accurate calorie burn. What do you all do to record your excercise accurately on here??

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  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
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    "Yoga" is listed.

    And the others are just "Circuit training."
  • seena511
    seena511 Posts: 685 Member
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    counting calories burned is not as easy as counting calories consumed. a 50 calorie piece of candy is 50 calories whether you're 4'11" or 6'4". however, two people doing the same exercise routine (say, the 30 day shred) are going to have vastly different calorie burns based on age, weight, height, intensity level, etc...you get the idea. MFP has some algorithms that can estimate calories burned for certain "standard" activities like running, rowing, etc. however, these videos and programs that you're doing are not really able to have one of those standard equations attached to them. a lot of people log things like this as circuit training, calisthenics, stuff like that. to really be sure of how many you're burning, however, you'd need a HRM. other than that, when you're doing high specialized workouts, it's just a guess.
  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
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    Walking also involves hills, not just level surfaces, so are probably burning a walking amount of calories.

    I log active resistance workouts, like biggest loser, as circuit training (or curves circuit training, if I find it less challenging than usual), as they are based on the same principles.

    Yoga is in the database.

    Food can generally be weighed and calories accounted for to within a minimal margin of error.

    Exercise DVDs and classes, even sports, are dependent on your effort, as well as your actual weight and body composition. If you want accurate numbers, you will have to get a heart rate monitor.
  • jacquelyndraper
    jacquelyndraper Posts: 6
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    thanks! makes more sense now, I think most of what I do would be circuit training, just did jillians 30 day shred and its all circuits, I appreciate the help :)
  • preslyann50
    preslyann50 Posts: 114 Member
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    best purchase I made for my weight loss has been my hear rate monitor. It really helped me realize how much I was burning, which sometimes was a lot more then what the boards would say. If you can swing it, I'd get one.

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