How Do You Track Your HIIT on MFP

I think MFP falls short in this area as HIIT should be an obvious calorie burn count option they should be able to fanagle. If I am at the gym and get a count off a machine after some HIIT, or off another online calorie counter I use, then I keep adjusting the minutes of a particular exercise listed on MFP until I get a close match in the # of calories burned.

If I decide to hit the park instead, I know I can run 7 mph and walk 3.2 on one of the gym treadmill programs at the moment, so I just use the 5 mph average listed on MFP and log my exact minutes of activity. I don't do anything fancy or advanced HIIT-wise at this point and really like to keep things as straightforward as possible when it comes tonmath.

I did notice that after using the treadmill for HIIT and non-HIIT workouts at the gym there was about a 40% difference in the # of calories displayed. I think a quick fix would be for MFP to have a check box (below where you enter your activity minutes) that asks if your session involved HIIT and it will add a flat / conservative 20-25% increase in calories burned so we'd have SOMETHING to work with in that vein. Been meaning to request that.

I log it as circuit training

consideritdonemi wrote: »

I think MFP falls short in this area as HIIT should be an obvious calorie burn count option they should be able to fanagle.

I completely disagree. Because a "HIIT workout" can encompass SO many different types of training (from bootcamps to circuit-style workouts to cardio machine work, etc) I think getting any kind of accurate calculation would be nearly impossible without a HRM. Also, why do you adjust your minutes instead of the calorie burn in your exercise logging? I feel like that would be the obvious solution.

I do HIIT classes 3-4 times a week. The classes are 45 minutes long, but the actual work portion takes up about 25 minutes, so I created a cardio exercise for myself called "HIIT" and log 250 calories for each class. I figure that given my effort level (and sweat!) during the workouts, that's probably a bit conservative, but better under than over!

consideritdonemi wrote: »

alikonda wrote: »

I completely disagree. Because a "HIIT workout" can encompass SO many different types of training (from bootcamps to circuit-style workouts to cardio machine work, etc) I think getting any kind of accurate calculation would be nearly impossible without a HRM. Also, why do you adjust your minutes instead of the calorie burn in your exercise logging? I feel like that would be the obvious solution.

consideritdonemi wrote: »

I think MFP falls short in this area as HIIT should be an obvious calorie burn count option they should be able to fanagle.

Of course, there would be many variables to consider with HIIT and the type and level of training you do. Nobody is arguing that. I said what *I* do isn't fancy and I may do 15 to 25 minutes at a time, so I calculate one of two ways as referenced above. As far as increasing minutes, if I am at the gym and the treadmill says 300 calories burned (example) of walk/run HIIT, but MFP will only 'credit' 225 (example) based on a standard exercise running session, I will increase my MFP minutes to get to log that 300.

"Nobody is arguing that" -- But you did. You said "HIIT should be an obvious calorie burn count option they should be able to fanagle" (it's finagle, btw). As we have both now discussed, it is by no means a trivial task to come up with a semi-accurate burn estimate without providing a LOT more data.

As for your own tracking, you can just change the "Calories Burned" field when you enter exercise instead of minutes. That way you can look at your statistics over time for items such as "minutes exercised" instead of contaminating your data and still get to eat the extra calories! (Science nerd here, can you tell? )