MFP not taking exercise calories into account?

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Ryguy08
Ryguy08 Posts: 61 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hey all, I've been using the app for a long time now. I was mainly focusing on weight loss for the last couple months, so I was doing mostly cardio and logging the calories I burned manually which I got from my hrm. I recently increased my calorie goal to maintenance and am going back to strength training 3 days a week and 3 days of cardio. So I selected not very active because my job isn't very physical most of the time. But when I plug in my fitness goals (6 days a week for 45 min), I get the same calorie goal as when I put nothing in. It seems that it's not taking that into account. Do I have to use my hrm even when I do strength training in order to get an accurate number? I'm pretty sure you can't log calories burned from strength training on the app. If anyone can shed some light on this I would appreciate it!

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  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
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    Ryguy08 wrote: »
    Hey all, I've been using the app for a long time now. I was mainly focusing on weight loss for the last couple months, so I was doing mostly cardio and logging the calories I burned manually which I got from my hrm. I recently increased my calorie goal to maintenance and am going back to strength training 3 days a week and 3 days of cardio. So I selected not very active because my job isn't very physical most of the time. But when I plug in my fitness goals (6 days a week for 45 min), I get the same calorie goal as when I put nothing in. It seems that it's not taking that into account. Do I have to use my hrm even when I do strength training in order to get an accurate number? I'm pretty sure you can't log calories burned from strength training on the app. If anyone can shed some light on this I would appreciate it!

    Yeah, the fitness goal does not affect your calorie goal. I am not sure why it even asks that, unless it is taken into account for Premium users.

    Log "strength training" in the cardio section.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    MFP sets you up to lose weight without exercise, so those fitness goals are just a guidance. You can find strength training under cardio to get an estimate of calories burned while lifting. Your best bet will be to log that number (or a percentage of it), as HRMs are not reliable means of measuring calorie burn for strength training.
  • Ryguy08
    Ryguy08 Posts: 61 Member
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    Thanks! I'll log the estimate for strength training, but I'll be careful not to overestimate. I used to do that and I wasn't seeing the results I wanted until I started logging accurate calories burned based on my HRM.

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