Cycling everywhere - but it doesn't really count, exercise wise.

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MaggieMillion
MaggieMillion Posts: 10 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Just thinking about how many k I cycled yesterday. I went to a paint shop to get samples and it was a round trip of 8 k, on flat ground. Then I went to the shops and had a coffee and cycled home. Then my Mam wanted me to give her the book I'd been reading and I cycled over to her house to give it to her. I realised I'd left 'map my run' (switched to cycle) on all day and I'd cycled 14 kilometres but it doesn't really take anything out of you, cycling on flat ground. I could ''count'' those calories and eat a bit more but instinctively I know that it would just interfere with my weight loss. Anybody else feel like it takes so little out of them that it'd be cheating to count those calories. If I do a jillian michaels workout I feel like I WORKED!

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  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,205 Member
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    If you didn't put in much of an effort, you probably didn't burn much in the way of calories. 14 kilometres is quite a short distance. With a good effort, a person can burn 100 calories for every 5 kilometres ... 14 would be just under 300 calories. But with a light effort, it's probably half that.

    You could log it as, say, 150 calories ... and then eat about half that back. :)


    Next time try picking up the speed and/or including some hills. :) For example, I did a short 33 km ride on Saturday that included nearly 700 metres of climbing, much of which were quite steep. That was a decent effort!!

    A few weeks ago, I rode a 210 km randonnee with 2700 metres of climbing. Believe me, I felt like I worked by the end of that.
  • SandraNancy
    SandraNancy Posts: 127 Member
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    Agree with Machka9. I bike to and from work every day, which is 8K roundtrip. I've worn a heart rate monitor to get a more accurate sense of calories burned, but with MFP I just use a speed slower than what I've been biking. Particularly since I'm in traffic and there's a lot of stopping and starting. I'm biking in the 12-15mph range, but I log it as less than 10 mph to account for all the stops and starts. I find that works out pretty well to what a heart rate monitor says I burn. Maybe try that? Though you would have to know how fast you were going. 14km in 30 minutes is more effort than 14km in 2 hours, after all!
  • PeachyPlum
    PeachyPlum Posts: 1,243 Member
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    If you don't have any hills to work with, you can always shift into a higher gear to get some extra work out of your ride!
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,205 Member
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    PeachyPlum wrote: »
    If you don't have any hills to work with, you can always shift into a higher gear to get some extra work out of your ride!

    Back in the days when I lived in Manitoba, I would do "hill repeats" on overpasses, and I'd attack them at full speed, in a relatively difficult gear so that there was some challenge.

    I also rode into a whole lot of wind. What Manitoba lacks in hills, it makes up for in wind.
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,214 Member
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    It still counts, but perhaps if it's part of your daily routine you might want to adjust your activity level rather than count it as exercise.
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
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    It just counts as bonus burn!
  • Tweaking_Time
    Tweaking_Time Posts: 733 Member
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    When I ride with my wife - and she rides at a casual speed in the 8-10 mph range - I don't count it as much of a burn. MFP does take this into account with the cycling speed ranges.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
    edited July 2017
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    Most of my cycling is done at a conversational pace which is around 16-18 MPH on average...I definitely count it. I also count recreational rides with my kids...it's not as many calories as my regular rides, but it still counts...the more you move, the higher your energy requisites are regardless of whether you feel like it's "taking it out of you."
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
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    My "I feel lazy, I'm just going to cruise around at a level that doesn't take anything out of me" recovery pace is about 100w which is 360 calories per hour.
  • MaggieMillion
    MaggieMillion Posts: 10 Member
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    Thanks everybody, at the moment my fitness pal ''allows'' me 1200 calories a day so I could do with earning at least some extra calories, maybe not every day but if I do any socialising at all, it's hard to consume less on those days. I make sure that two days equal 2400 but I don't eat the same each day it's mentally easier that way.

    As suggested I may grant myself half of the calories I burned, that probably wouldn't sabotage my attempts.
    I've been trying to lose weight now for about 5 weeks, I lost 2 kilos really quickly in the first 20 days and then since then, not a gram. So I'm wary of adding on calories!

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