Exercise calorie insanity

Options
James_1954
James_1954 Posts: 187 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
OK, so I'm in a Monday 9-hole after-work golf league. Tonight I thought, "I walk and use a pull cart, and that's a little bit of exercise ... I'll try and log that and see what happens." So I entered "golf" in the search window, and I found "golf, pulling clubs," so I selected that. How many minutes, it wanted to know. So I thought a little, and we're usually on about a 2 hour and 15 minute pace, so I put in 135 minutes. It came back with over a thousand calories! Yeah, sure. I did my usual M-W-F spin class this morning at the Y, and it only credited me with 600-odd calories for that, which frankly seems generous, but ... 1000+ calories for nine holes of golf? Stop the insanity!

I couldn't in good conscience leave that there. So I changed the minutes to 60, which got me down in the 500-calorie neighborhood.

I'm skeptical about these calorie equivalents, which is one reason why I generally don't eat 'em back.

Replies

  • yeabby
    yeabby Posts: 643 Member
    Options
    A heart rate monitor with a chest strap is the only accurate way to know. You could wear it while you golf. :)
  • paulagabay
    paulagabay Posts: 96
    Options
    600 calories for an hour of spinn is farely accurate if you are going at it very hard.
  • takemeaway10
    takemeaway10 Posts: 75
    Options
    There's an app called Endomondo that tracks you as you walk, run, bike, etc. It burns your battery, but it works fairly well. I doubt they have "Cart pulling" for golf, but it'll simply calculate what you burn for walking. My husband has a similar issue with basketball officiating; he could quite possibly be burning all those calories, but eating them back (especially when he's never hungry worth 1000 extra calories) seems excessive.
  • WifeMomDVM
    WifeMomDVM Posts: 1,025 Member
    Options
    A heart rate monitor with a chest strap is the only accurate way to know. You could wear it while you golf. :)

    And then subtract your BMR calories as it will be counting those also. :)
  • James_1954
    James_1954 Posts: 187 Member
    Options
    Thanks, folks. I'm going to have to think about one of those heart-rate monitors. I hope they're tolerant of being drowned in sweat. I start sweating about the time I even think about going to the Y -- and it just gets wetter from there.
  • kr3851
    kr3851 Posts: 994 Member
    Options
    Thanks, folks. I'm going to have to think about one of those heart-rate monitors. I hope they're tolerant of being drowned in sweat. I start sweating about the time I even think about going to the Y -- and it just gets wetter from there.

    mine (polar) is waterproof - so you can wear it swimming! the chest strap needs to be wet to work properly so sweating buckets is perfect...
  • James_1954
    James_1954 Posts: 187 Member
    Options
    There's an app called Endomondo that tracks you as you walk, run, bike, etc. It burns your battery, but it works fairly well. I doubt they have "Cart pulling" for golf, but it'll simply calculate what you burn for walking. My husband has a similar issue with basketball officiating; he could quite possibly be burning all those calories, but eating them back (especially when he's never hungry worth 1000 extra calories) seems excessive.

    In your husband's case, if he's officiating a full-court game, I could easily buy 1000 calories. An official has to run up and down just like the players.

    Also, thanks for the suggestion. I don't have one of those smart phones yet, but one of these days, maybe. I hate the thought of carrying a phone that's smarter than me! :-)

Categories