Guitar calories
zidine100
Posts: 23 Member
Right this is a dumb question. Okay most of my questions are dumb but hey ho.
Ive recently started playing guitar (about two months ago) and ive seen on a few places that it burns a reasonably significant amount of calories. Keep in mind I play standing because I can never get comfortable sitting down playing and I tend to do at least a one hour session a day up to well four or more hours when I get really caught up and distracted with it. Since this is a bit of a significant amount of time spent my question to you guys is should I really log it? It seems a bit out there that playing guitar actually burns that many calories (for a one hour session the listing here states it burns about 202) or should i just leave it, because honestly logging guitar sounds a bit well like im grasping at straws for extra calories.
Ive recently started playing guitar (about two months ago) and ive seen on a few places that it burns a reasonably significant amount of calories. Keep in mind I play standing because I can never get comfortable sitting down playing and I tend to do at least a one hour session a day up to well four or more hours when I get really caught up and distracted with it. Since this is a bit of a significant amount of time spent my question to you guys is should I really log it? It seems a bit out there that playing guitar actually burns that many calories (for a one hour session the listing here states it burns about 202) or should i just leave it, because honestly logging guitar sounds a bit well like im grasping at straws for extra calories.
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Replies
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No don't log it
Yes grasping at straws
It's accounted for in activity
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Thats sorta what I thought.0
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Unless you're jumping all over the place like a young Pete Townshend, I'd not log anything.0
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You burn a few more calories standing vs. sitting, but not enough that you should log this as an activity.
If doing this, along with other activities, eventually leaves you feeling extra hungry/losing weight more quickly than you expect, then you can make adjustments.
But as rabbit and Carol said - not worth logging otherwise.
~Lyssa0 -
No wonder old rock stars are so skinny. I'm thinking Angus Young from ACDC in particular!
Meatloaf, Mama Cass, qnd Elvis should have played more guitar!
Honestly though that is definitely just a daily activity0 -
Unless you play like the musicians in the Trans-Siberian Orchesta, no, I would not count it.0
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Play guitar sitting down: 20 calories per hour
Play guitar standing up: 60 calories per hour
Play guitar standing up on a treadmill: 60 calories per hour
Play guitar standing up with treadmill turned on: 220 calories per hour
Play guitar standing up with treadmill turned on in the middle of a freeway: 6,879 calories per hour0 -
I'm a musician (I play the trumpet) and the only time I log my playing is if I had a very long and intense rehearsal or gig. I logged the other night because I played for a solid hour and a half without a break (no bars of rest). But, I log this rarely, I don't trust the calorie count, and I don't eat back all of the calories.0
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To log it or not isn't a question the forum can directly answer. Many love to say don't log, but they don't even consider the question of trying to maintain the status quo.
If you were losing weight on track with mfp estimate and then replaced watching TV (or anything that burns very few calories) then either you'll lose additional weight, or you can somehow account for it and eat more calories to maintain the current pace. There are two ways to do that, either bump up your neat calories (activity level) or enter it as exercise.
Ultimately, do whatever works for you. I don't log that I play piano, but my current activity level accounts for it.0 -
It depends on your style and how hard you are working. It makes more sense to log performing than practice, especially if you are walking around or dancing.
It also depends on whether or not you eat back exercise calories.
I don't log playing my extraordinarily heavy antique accordion. I would guess that it's probably burning twice as much as playing guitar...but I am not doing it often or for terribly long.
People give me crap all of the time for logging gardening. I log it when I am doing HEAVY gardening--composting (I do all of the layering/turning for an entire community garden with many families), hauling materials, digging, plowing a field. I am not logging watering plants. It's your life and you are the only one who can really judge the amount of effort you are putting forth.0 -
I wouldn't log it. I know playing guitar for a while can make me sweat a little, but I don't really feel my heart rate going up. Unless you start seeing a discrepancy in expected loss versus actual loss (as in, you lose more than expected), in which case you might want to start logging it.
But yeah, even when I get intense, it's just not much motion going on. Good guitar playing is about economy of motion, after all. I probably burn more calories keeping time with my feet, honestly.0 -
I wonder about this myself. For example, yesterday I played music for solid four or five hours - and even when playing while sitting down, I'm much more active than sitting in front of a computer. I play folk music, so it's very rhythmical, lots of movement.
MFP's exercise log has a clearly too high entry for playing music (something like 250 calories per hour). I am pretty sure I don't burn that much above my usual metabolic rate per hour, but I do think that on days when I play music for about five hours, I probably burn an additional 200 or so calories in total.0 -
Right this is a dumb question. Okay most of my questions are dumb but hey ho.
Ive recently started playing guitar (about two months ago) and ive seen on a few places that it burns a reasonably significant amount of calories. Keep in mind I play standing because I can never get comfortable sitting down playing and I tend to do at least a one hour session a day up to well four or more hours when I get really caught up and distracted with it. Since this is a bit of a significant amount of time spent my question to you guys is should I really log it? It seems a bit out there that playing guitar actually burns that many calories (for a one hour session the listing here states it burns about 202) or should i just leave it, because honestly logging guitar sounds a bit well like im grasping at straws for extra calories.
You're right. Guitar playing is part of your activity setting. The only activity you log calorie wise is steady state cardio.0 -
@jim180155, love the humor.
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It depends on your style and how hard you are working. It makes more sense to log performing than practice, especially if you are walking around or dancing.
It also depends on whether or not you eat back exercise calories.
I don't log playing my extraordinarily heavy antique accordion. I would guess that it's probably burning twice as much as playing guitar...but I am not doing it often or for terribly long.
People give me crap all of the time for logging gardening. I log it when I am doing HEAVY gardening--composting (I do all of the layering/turning for an entire community garden with many families), hauling materials, digging, plowing a field. I am not logging watering plants. It's your life and you are the only one who can really judge the amount of effort you are putting forth.
It makes no sense to log instrumental activity at all, or gardening, or doing some hard labor. How in the heck do you calculate those calories anyway?0 -
It depends on your style and how hard you are working. It makes more sense to log performing than practice, especially if you are walking around or dancing.
It also depends on whether or not you eat back exercise calories.
I don't log playing my extraordinarily heavy antique accordion. I would guess that it's probably burning twice as much as playing guitar...but I am not doing it often or for terribly long.
People give me crap all of the time for logging gardening. I log it when I am doing HEAVY gardening--composting (I do all of the layering/turning for an entire community garden with many families), hauling materials, digging, plowing a field. I am not logging watering plants. It's your life and you are the only one who can really judge the amount of effort you are putting forth.
It makes no sense to log instrumental activity at all, or gardening, or doing some hard labor. How in the heck do you calculate those calories anyway?
Composting for an entire community garden sounds like a workout to me..I'd equate it to a gym calisthenics session and take half the MFP database calories for time spent
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It depends on your style and how hard you are working. It makes more sense to log performing than practice, especially if you are walking around or dancing.
It also depends on whether or not you eat back exercise calories.
I don't log playing my extraordinarily heavy antique accordion. I would guess that it's probably burning twice as much as playing guitar...but I am not doing it often or for terribly long.
People give me crap all of the time for logging gardening. I log it when I am doing HEAVY gardening--composting (I do all of the layering/turning for an entire community garden with many families), hauling materials, digging, plowing a field. I am not logging watering plants. It's your life and you are the only one who can really judge the amount of effort you are putting forth.
It makes no sense to log instrumental activity at all, or gardening, or doing some hard labor. How in the heck do you calculate those calories anyway?
Composting for an entire community garden sounds like a workout to me..I'd equate it to a gym calisthenics session and take half the MFP database calories for time spent
Not me, because I just figure it will come out in the wash on another day if I eat too much.
I did miss the community gardening part, though...0 -
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