How Accurate is MapMyWalk?

greengrassgala
greengrassgala Posts: 15 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi All!

If you use MMW, how accurate do you feel the burned calories total is? There seems to be approx. a 100-120 cal difference between MFP (when I select the exercise option and put in the minutes) and MMW.

Thoughts?

Replies

  • silaspc
    silaspc Posts: 5 Member
    All these apps have an element of inaccuracy due to the various methods of modelling how much energy you use doing exercise. When I first started losing weight I would track walking and running using MMW and eat back what the app said I had burned.

    After learning about how inaccurate they can be, I now don't eat back this energy. You might burn 200-300 calories walking or running, but you might have burned 150 just sitting on the couch watching TV. Does the app record the difference between your sedentary activity and active activity, or you do need to subtract that? It got too confusing to me, and tracking the exercise was annoying so now I just go for a walk and try to be active, and all the energy I burn doing it is a 'bonus' to my mild deficit.

    Cheers and happy walking. :)
  • Pootler74
    Pootler74 Posts: 223 Member
    I've been using MapMyFitness for walks and the burn estimates are ridiculous. More than twice what my fitness band calculates, and a good 30% more than the MFP numbers.

    I had a look on the app's website about burn estimates, and they just say they use all your information to accurately calculate how many calories you used on a particular activity. I have no idea how they get such high numbers, but I'm pretty darn sure that my 75 minute walk yesterday, even at a brisk pace, did not burn 550 calories.

    I manually enter half of what the app says, and try not to eat those calories back.
  • dammitjanet0161
    dammitjanet0161 Posts: 319 Member
    They seem to use the same inflated figures as the MFP database - I use a HRM and the figures from my walks/runs are about 60% of what MapMy... gives.
  • Pootler74
    Pootler74 Posts: 223 Member
    New record today. Fitness band said my walk was 125 calories. MapMyFitness says 306. At that sort of inflated rate the numbers are useless.
  • daniwilford
    daniwilford Posts: 1,030 Member
    I use map walk to measure miles but not calories used. I do the old fashioned miles divided by minutes walked to determine my rate. I usually choose leisurely pace (2.5 miles per hour on MFP) but never eat all my exercise calories back and my walk route is usually equally dispersed between uphill, downhill and flat land.
  • leahcollett1
    leahcollett1 Posts: 807 Member
    my heart rate monitor is about 200 calories lower than the estimated burn on map my walk - my heart rate monitor is calculated by my weight, age, sex, height - map my walk isnt, i trust my hrm and eat back most calories, last week i lost 2.5lbs on a 1.5lbs per week allowance
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    I use MapMyRide and find that it gives me about twice as many calories as I actually burn, as does my HRM. I solved the problem by setting my weight in MapMyRide to half of my goal weight.

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