Calories burned: leisurely swimming vs lap swimming

JRiggs1979
JRiggs1979 Posts: 4 Member
edited November 19 in Fitness and Exercise
MFP estimates that 30 minutes of leisurely swimming burns 260 calories for someone at my weight, and just 130 calories for lap swimming for the same length of time. How can it be that leisurely swimming burns double the calories of lap swimming? For me, lap swimming is HARD. I exert a ton of effort because swimming isn't easy for me. And even for a good swimmer: it doesn't make sense that swimming leisurely burns double the amount of calories as lap swimming for exercise.

What say you?

Replies

  • JRiggs1979
    JRiggs1979 Posts: 4 Member
    And MFP says that 30 minutes of breaststroke swimming burns over 400 calories in 30 minutes. What's the deal? I swam laps using the breaststroke. I don't swim well, or fast. Did I swim laps? Did I swim leisurely? Did I swim breaststroke? LOL. Big difference between 130, 260, and 400+ calories.
  • JRiggs1979
    JRiggs1979 Posts: 4 Member
    Sorry for the serial posting, I've used MFP for calorie and macronutrient tracking for years, but never tracked exercise, so this is all new to me. I'm trying to enter yard work now. If I choose from the drop down menu on the right, yard work is an option, but it doesn't actually let me add to my exercise diary from that drop down menu, I have to use the database search feature on the left for that. Except, yard work doesn't come up in the database on the left, even though it's listed in the drop down menu on the right. This is beyond frustrating.

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  • hararayne
    hararayne Posts: 261 Member
    this is why I don't really count on the MFP exercise function. I use my fitbit. Swimming is a hard one to calculate. That's why I've been considering getting a monitor specifically for swimming. There are a few that directly connect to MFP.
  • Sassafras106
    Sassafras106 Posts: 73 Member
    Try putting in how many yards/ meters you swam (regardless of stroke) within the correct timeframe into another website, and then write the calories into MFP. If it helps today i swam 400 meters this afternoon and my Fitbit only gave me about 60 calories so all of the entries on this site are most likely way off
  • JRiggs1979
    JRiggs1979 Posts: 4 Member
    Thank you both. I wish a FitBit or swimming-specific monitor was in my budget. The pool membership was a stretch, but I have fibromyalgia, so a lot of types of exercise are rough on me. Swimming is great.
  • GrumpyHeadmistress
    GrumpyHeadmistress Posts: 666 Member
    I swim regularly (4-5 a week) and do about 2500m in breaststroke. I swim fast, usually the fastest person in the pool. My Apple Watch gives me 450 calories per hour whereas MFP gives me over 600. I've always assumed that the watch is more accurate as it's a HRM.
  • allyphoe
    allyphoe Posts: 618 Member
    JRiggs1979 wrote: »
    MFP estimates that 30 minutes of leisurely swimming burns 260 calories for someone at my weight, and just 130 calories for lap swimming for the same length of time.

    MFP gives me 195 for leisurely, 227 for light/moderate effort freestyle laps, and 130 for water aerobics.

    Based on actual results, slow laps in a warm pool is equivalent to water aerobics. Moderate effort in a cold pool is equivalent to leisurely. I can't swim long enough and hard enough to get up to light effort laps.
  • Colectable93
    Colectable93 Posts: 38 Member
    I do aqua Exercises 4to5 days a week I start off with swimming six laps and then I do aqua exercises for an hour to an hour and a half pretty intense, and then I end it with six laps I bought a Polaris a 360 through Amazon which I can use in the water tracks my heart rate, it was about $116, with the flick of my wrist I can see what my heart rate is so that I make sure I'm in the fat burning zone and has an app that afterwords will tell me how long I was in each zone. Typically with an hour to an hour and a half work out I burn around 390 to 420 cal. The other day I took one of the Y water aerobics classes and worked out on my own afterwards for an hour and a half that was 2 1/2 hours and I burned 650. , before I purchase this watch I was using the MFP data and that was way off. I am 54 yrs old and 5'3" and weigh 240, just started my journey a little over two months ago and I am down 21 pds and 12 inches . I love the Polaris a360 it was the cheapest option of the highly rated trackers and does what I want it to do .
  • DevilsFan1
    DevilsFan1 Posts: 342 Member
    edited July 2017
    Unless you are exercising strenuously (15 mile runs, 75 mile bike rides, etc.), you're better off not worrying about about calories burned while exercising. Treat exercise as something you do to keep your body in shape, not as a way of losing weight. Weight loss begins and ends in the kitchen.

    For example, a 200 lb man burns about 60 calories walking a mile at a moderate pace. That's about the equivalent of one Oreo. You simply cannot outrun a bad diet.
  • Colectable93
    Colectable93 Posts: 38 Member
    I agree Devils Fan1 , the exercise is the extra to help the process along the way, you have to watch what you eat, I never add back in my exercise calories.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    edited July 2017
    DevilsFan1 wrote: »
    Unless you are exercising strenuously (15 mile runs, 75 mile bike rides, etc.), you're better off not worrying about about calories burned while exercising. Treat exercise as something you do to keep your body in shape, not as a way of losing weight. Weight loss begins and ends in the kitchen.

    For example, a 200 lb man burns about 60 calories walking a mile at a moderate pace. That's about the equivalent of one Oreo. You simply cannot outrun a bad diet.
    collectable99 wrote: »
    I agree Devils Fan1 , the exercise is the extra to help the process along the way, you have to watch what you eat, I never add back in my exercise calories.

    I know I shouldn't eat back my exercise calories because I only exercise at a light to moderate rate a few times a week and tend to be a little sloppy with my logging, so it all evens out. But that doesn't mean no one should. If a person logs very carefully, those extra calories needed to fuel their activity could make the difference between sticking with the plan & going off the rails. Personally, my experience with swimming- constant movement, not a lot of standing around- is that it's very taxing and makes me very hungry... a good sign that a few extra calories would be in order. But yes, MFP's numbers are off- I only would count half of it.

    Ultimately, a person's results should determine their strategy.
  • DevilsFan1
    DevilsFan1 Posts: 342 Member
    try2again wrote: »
    DevilsFan1 wrote: »
    Unless you are exercising strenuously (15 mile runs, 75 mile bike rides, etc.), you're better off not worrying about about calories burned while exercising. Treat exercise as something you do to keep your body in shape, not as a way of losing weight. Weight loss begins and ends in the kitchen.

    For example, a 200 lb man burns about 60 calories walking a mile at a moderate pace. That's about the equivalent of one Oreo. You simply cannot outrun a bad diet.
    collectable99 wrote: »
    I agree Devils Fan1 , the exercise is the extra to help the process along the way, you have to watch what you eat, I never add back in my exercise calories.

    I know I shouldn't eat back my exercise calories because I only exercise at a light to moderate rate a few times a week and tend to be a little sloppy with my logging, so it all evens out. But that doesn't mean no one should. If a person logs very carefully, those extra calories needed to fuel their activity could make the difference between sticking with the plan & going off the rails. Personally, my experience with swimming- constant movement, not a lot of standing around- is that it's very taxing and makes me very hungry... a good sign that a few extra calories would be in order. But yes, MFP's numbers are off- I only would count half of it.

    Ultimately, a person's results should determine their strategy.

    The problem is that people almost always underestimate the amount of calories they are ingesting and overestimate the number of calories they are burning when exercising, And then they wonder why they can't lose weight. For 95% of the people out there, it's best just to not eat calories back because they likely aren't counting calories carefully enough when they eat for the small number they burned during exercise to make a difference.
  • tk2222
    tk2222 Posts: 199 Member
    I try to adapt swimming calories via a distance calculator of some sort. Its still probably not perfect, but I know what distance I swam precisely, whereas how long exactly is rougher - some laps are slower than others, sometimes I get stuck behind someone slow, sometimes I rest for a few minutes, etc - and there's more basic laws of physics about how much energy it takes to move a body X meters through water than whatever guesswork is fueling MFP's wonky swim numbers.

    So I take roughly what I get with stroke, bodyweight and distance, and then lowball it a bit with whatever time matches on MFP. I've settled on the 'leisurely swimming' at a coversion of 30 mins to 1000 meters breaststroke. That gives me a little under 300 calories for 30 minutes on MFP if I'm about 90kg. I'm sure it's not 100%, but the maths roughly adds up - if I have a food deficit of 700 calories and swim for 300 calories daily and don't eat it back, I lose about 1kg a week.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    DevilsFan1 wrote: »
    try2again wrote: »
    DevilsFan1 wrote: »
    Unless you are exercising strenuously (15 mile runs, 75 mile bike rides, etc.), you're better off not worrying about about calories burned while exercising. Treat exercise as something you do to keep your body in shape, not as a way of losing weight. Weight loss begins and ends in the kitchen.

    For example, a 200 lb man burns about 60 calories walking a mile at a moderate pace. That's about the equivalent of one Oreo. You simply cannot outrun a bad diet.
    collectable99 wrote: »
    I agree Devils Fan1 , the exercise is the extra to help the process along the way, you have to watch what you eat, I never add back in my exercise calories.

    I know I shouldn't eat back my exercise calories because I only exercise at a light to moderate rate a few times a week and tend to be a little sloppy with my logging, so it all evens out. But that doesn't mean no one should. If a person logs very carefully, those extra calories needed to fuel their activity could make the difference between sticking with the plan & going off the rails. Personally, my experience with swimming- constant movement, not a lot of standing around- is that it's very taxing and makes me very hungry... a good sign that a few extra calories would be in order. But yes, MFP's numbers are off- I only would count half of it.

    Ultimately, a person's results should determine their strategy.

    The problem is that people almost always underestimate the amount of calories they are ingesting and overestimate the number of calories they are burning when exercising, And then they wonder why they can't lose weight. For 95% of the people out there, it's best just to not eat calories back because they likely aren't counting calories carefully enough when they eat for the small number they burned during exercise to make a difference.

    I'm not saying it's not a common problem- as I said, I know it's true in my case- but making a blanket recommendation for everyone isn't a good idea. There are lots of posts on here from people scrupulously observing low-calorie diets and pursuing demanding exercise routines without eating back any exercise calories thinking they are doing themselves a favor, when what they are really doing is unnecessarily compromising more of their muscle mass. But yes, if a person finds that his/her weight loss has slowed down or stopped, they may want to make an adjustment (or better yet, learn to log more accurately).
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