Does MFP take into account current weight calculating exercise?

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GlenRossFarms
GlenRossFarms Posts: 17 Member
edited July 2016 in Fitness and Exercise
I tried searching for the answer but couldn't find it. I'm sure it's been asked.

I did about 30 minutes of what I consider medium Intensity on the elliptical today. My heart rate was around 150 for mostly the whole time. I'm 5'2" and about 112lbs. When I entered cardio into MFP for that amount of time, it said approximately 230 calories burned. That seems high, no? I know MFP can be inaccurate but that's seems really high.

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  • sammyliftsandeats
    sammyliftsandeats Posts: 2,421 Member
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    MFP generally overestimates the burn for exercise. I believe they take the weight you have in your profile into consideration, but I am not too sure.
  • DanyellMcGinnis
    DanyellMcGinnis Posts: 315 Member
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    If you are asking whether or not the MFP exercise calories are accurate, they are probably not. (I have been using them, nonetheless, since I do not have a heart rate monitor.)

    But, if you are asking whether the numbers change for the same exercise done for the same amount of time based on your weight, the answer is yes. As an example, I do 30 minutes of yoga every day. At the beginning of the year, I weighed a little above 160 and was getting a value of 90 calories burned for that. Now I am slightly under 130 and I am getting a value of 74 for that. Other exercises have scaled similarly (with respect to MFP database entries).
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    For cardio exercises, the answer is "Yes". I have a treadmill and my treadmill is a fancy gadget that offers numerous different programs of varying speed and incline. I created a custom mfp exercise for a specific program at a specific variety of speeds and a specific variety of inclines. As I lose or gain weight, my 30 minute entry attributes me a calorie burn smaller or larger than before. I don't think you can see my exercise diary, but it shows me that as I've lost weight using the same program, the program burns less and less energy.
  • Timelordlady85
    Timelordlady85 Posts: 797 Member
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    no calorie burns are going to be 100% accurate. They are just guided estimates depending on the data you input into MFP and fitbit. I don't eat back all my exercise calories and I've lost 23 pounds so far. :)
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    Yes MFP considers weight.

    But.

    The entry for elliptical is not a great one and tends to be very inflated.

    People say MFP overestimates calories. There are some entries that are. Some are decent ones.
    In general, the more descriptive the entry, the more reliable it will be. Like "walking, 3.0 mph" is a good one. It accounts for intensity. The ones that use "moderate effort" are less so since they are open to interpretation.

    In the case of the elliptical - it doesn't no account for intensity at all. And the numbers typically seem to be high for the time frame.

    I'd use the number you got from te machine itself or maybe cut the MFP entry in half.
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    This is a good explanation.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/estimating-calories-activity-databases-198041
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    For my custom mfp program, I used a calculator on the nordictrack site which calculates for user input of speed and incline. I collected 30 different readings for 30 intervals of 1 minute each, added all of them together, and then created my program on mfp with 30 minutes of it burning that sum. As long as I do that program for 30 minutes, mfp calculates my burn varying according to my weight change.
  • CindyFooWho
    CindyFooWho Posts: 179 Member
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    Oh my gosh, it would have to take weight into consideration. At 125lbs, I'm hoisting around far less weight than, say, a 300 lb man, therefore I'm not working as hard. Or is my thinking too simplistic here?

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