Calories

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davekc2
davekc2 Posts: 2 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I'm finding this a little odd, OK, entering your time when doing an exercise, say i put in a 20 min exercise, you can do a light exercise or a hard one, and the calories are the same, so you can work your butt off and not see a difference.

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  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,126 Member
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    I am not clear on what you are doing. If you enter the same exercise you will get the same calorie burn estimate for the same amount of time. If you do it at a different intensity, you need to pick the correct entry to get that number to change. I have never gotten the same number of calories if I change the exercise.

    For example, if I select Bicycling <16 kph for 20 minutes it gives me 151 calories burned. If I select Bicycling 19-23 kph for 20 minutes it gives me 302.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    davekc2 wrote: »
    I'm finding this a little odd, OK, entering your time when doing an exercise, say i put in a 20 min exercise, you can do a light exercise or a hard one, and the calories are the same, so you can work your butt off and not see a difference.

    enter the actual exercise you are doing (speed/distance, etc.) and it should differ. Depending on the exercise and how it was entered into MFP. One thing to be aware of, many of the cals burned tend to be overestimations.

    What exercise are you looking for the burn from?
    You can also override the amount burned to match an HRM or what the machine says.
  • iWishMyNameWasRebel
    iWishMyNameWasRebel Posts: 174 Member
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    I understand. For instance, if you enter time on the elliptical, you get the same results. There are no options for adjusting that one and several others. What I do is adjust the calories it says I burned. If I had a "HAM" workout, I leave it high. If I did more of a moderate workout, then I cut the calories in half.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,971 Member
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    What you're saying is that different exertion levels *should* give different result calorie-burn wise. Yes. That's correct.

    Exercise calories are difficult to estimate unless it is distance related. If it is, then you can use time, distance, and your weight to calculate.

    Everything else? It's a guess. What I did is just pick a number I felt was close. Take Zumba classes for instance...the online calculators said 500 calories for an hour. My heartrate monitor said 400. I decided to make that 300 and I used that number consistently. 1 hour = 300 for Zumba. I lost weight at just about the exact rate that was predicted.

    It's not a perfect calculation. Find several sources and use an average of them. Use that number consistently over time and you'll get close enough: and close enough is good enough in this. Adjust as results indicate. That's what we all have to do. It's a big ole science experiment.

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