METs and calories

yirara
yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So I'm looking at this list: https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/Activity-Categories/water-activities and this website: http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

I just swam 1000m in a pool, breaststroke in 26 minutes (not particularly fast). Please correct me if I'm wrong. The calories I burnt during that workout are:
Base metabolic rate (Mifflin-St GEor): 1383/24h = 57.53
MET (swimming, breaststroke, recreational) = 5.3
calories used 57.53*5.3/60*26 = 132 kcal

Does that make sense? Are these calories including or excluding the BMR over 26 minutes? Or should I be calculating with TDEE for a desk job to start with?

Leaves the question if this is still recreational swimming. It's not fast, but I swim quite a bit faster than those just swimming about a bit.

Replies

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
    If I look on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent) I read that: "One MET is defined as 1 kcal/kg/hour"
    Which would boil down to 5.3 (Met) *68.8/60min *26 min = 158kcal
    Quite a difference.
    But also wiki doesn't give me an explanation if these are the calories I should be logging here for sport or those including bmr over 26 minutes.

    Before someone mentions it: yes, these are statistical values. I simply cannot get a decent heart rate monitor in this place, and amazon etc ask shipping costs in the range of 100 USD, if they ship at all. So I'm just trying to get an estimate which is as good as possible
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    Your first post is correct and the value does include your BMR, so subtract that out if you want your net burn (or use 4.3 as your MET multiplier).

    I think it's a little easier to know your per-minute BMR and use that. Your's is .96 calories/minute so around 1. Then you can look at a METs value and figure 1 x 5.3, or 5.3 calories per minutes burned. So 5.3 x 26 minutes = 137 (or 121 net).
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
    Great, thanks a lot! Now I only need to figure out how to quantify swimming intensity :p

    edit; Looking at your example again: are you sure your numbers are correct? You subtract 16 from 137. My bmr over 26 minutes should be 0.96*26 ~ 25
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    Yeah, it's a toughie. I use a 'swim trainer' sometimes and that's really hard, since you don't actually have distance.

    Maybe try this:

    http://caloriesburnedhq.com/calories-burned-swimming/

    I put in your workout for my weight (similar BMR to yours) and it said 250 calories, so maybe you weren't moving so slow after all! 10 cals/min for swimming seems high. Well, for most of us 10 calories a minute is around our cardio max.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    Great, thanks a lot! Now I only need to figure out how to quantify swimming intensity :p

    edit; Looking at your example again: are you sure your numbers are correct? You subtract 16 from 137. My bmr over 26 minutes should be 0.96*26 ~ 25
    You're right, you should subtract around 26, not 16. :smile:
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
    Yeah, it's a toughie. I use a 'swim trainer' sometimes and that's really hard, since you don't actually have distance.

    Maybe try this:

    http://caloriesburnedhq.com/calories-burned-swimming/

    I put in your workout for my weight (similar BMR to yours) and it said 250 calories, so maybe you weren't moving so slow after all! 10 cals/min for swimming seems high. Well, for most of us 10 calories a minute is around our cardio max.

    Good one! I don't think it was so high. Though I just found some 1000m swimming times from non-pros and I'm mostly faster. But untrained in swimming. Thus maybe my technique isn't completely rubbish.

    edit: your link above is interesting. The question is: what is a standard sized swimming pool. I guess it's 50m, but I'm not sure.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    I think standard is 25m and Olympic is 50m? If you went 500m instead of 1000 the calorie estimate would be similar to the METs estimate. Which would make sense since I think many estimators use the METs tables.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
    Hmm.. this calculator only seems to take time into account, and not intensity. If I shorten the distance the result is still the same.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    It goes down to 170 from 250 for me if I change it to 10 laps of a 50m pool from 20 laps?
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
    *Blush* it's laps, not distance in meters! I thought ok, the pool length does play a role in the whole calculation as I'd need less energy swimming in a smaller pool *facepalm* right, now it works!
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
    Anyway, once I'm fitter again (just had an asthma attack, first time) I'll try to work on my technique and also try to learn other swimming styles. At the moment I can only do 25m of crawling, and surprisingly 50m of butterfly. Don't like back swimming.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
    Ah, been digging bit more around that MET website and found something interesting in the references here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxjb21wZW5kaXVtb2ZwaHlzaWNhbGFjdGl2aXRpZXN8Z3g6NjUzNGQ2Y2E4Y2M1MzgwYw
    (general link: https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/references)

    According to this, the MET for
    breaststroke swimming at
    40 yards/min is 8.47
    30 yards/min is 6.36
    20 yards/min is 4.33

    So I don't know how far a yard is, but I was swimming an average of 38.46 meters/min and google tells me that's 42 yards/min. Wow, I'm a fast swimmer after all and the swimming calorie website you linked to seems to be not too bad after all.
  • raggiemom
    raggiemom Posts: 139 Member
    bump for keeping calculations....starting to swim again this week!!
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
    y'r welcome. I'm mainly posting links and calculation for myself as I really need to tidy up my bookmarks.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    According to this, the MET for
    breaststroke swimming at
    40 yards/min is 8.47
    30 yards/min is 6.36
    20 yards/min is 4.33

    That is actually good, useful information - thanks for sharing.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,941 Member
    bumping for myself
  • cw106
    cw106 Posts: 952 Member
    i also drove myself to distraction trying to work out cals burned from swimming 2 years ago when i restarted.
    scientifically, METs seem to be the best measure yet so many factors/variables that i would need to be a researcher at stanford uni to work them out.
    now i have found mfp, i use it as a one stop shop for all my needs.
    many variations of swim calories burned in cardio exercise section.
    i just adapt them to the lowest setting for whichever swim combo workout i do.
    i only eat back max 30% of calorie burn and am always in a net deficit. to continue my 2lb weekly loss.
    whatever method you use its only a guide. unless your training for serious competition,in which case the relative bodies will work it out for you!
    enjoy your swimming, de- stress and reap the benefits.
    g luck.

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