Do you ever comment on unrealistic logging by friends?

135

Replies

  • RAinWA
    RAinWA Posts: 1,980 Member
    You can have friends on here? There's a news feed? :D (my apologies to both of my friends)

    I don't think I would say anything though unless someone actually asked me for help. If what they are doing is working, yeah them! If not, well, they will probably figure it out or ask for help.
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
    MikePTY wrote: »
    Part of the issue is with the MFP calorie estimators for exercise, which seem to be in active conflict with their activity multipliers. For instance, lets take a 30 year old, 5'4, 160 pound woman. BMR would be 1431, which means that if someone defined themselves as Sedentary, they would have a normal burn of 1717. Now lets say that person does house cleaning for a living. They have 2 options. They could choose their activity level as either "active" or "highly active", which would give them another 500-700 calories per day of budgeting. Or they could log 480 minutes of "Cleaning, light, moderate effort", which would likely say that they burned about 3x the calories than if they included that as part of their activity level.

    So I think a big issue with calorie logging is that logging basic household activities greatly overestimates the number of calories burned. Exercise is not meant to be done for hours. If a person finds themselves doing hours of a life related exercise on the regular, they should raise their activity level, rather than logging it as exercise. Exercise should be for specific acts of exercise outside of normal daily activity.

    Huh? Why not? And who didn't mean for us to exercise for hours?

    Yesterday I spent about 3.5 hours riding my bike up and down Sherman Pass. The day before I rode Loup Loup Pass, which coincidentally also took me about 3.5 hours. I work as a software engineer so sedentary is the correct activity level. Today it's stormy and the weekday riding is over.

    I'd find it very difficult to train for a marathon without exercising for hours.

    I *wish* distance training didn't take hours. Love the races, hate the training runs.
  • Its_Haleeyyy
    Its_Haleeyyy Posts: 39 Member
    If they post something asking for advice/suggestions then maybe. If they don't say anything then no.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited October 2018
    Hmmm.

    NVM
  • anothermfpuser
    anothermfpuser Posts: 84 Member
    I only did once when a user insisted she burned 3000+ calories on a 45 minute walk.

    She gave me hell and then deleted me.

    That was the only time...

    No one will recognize something isn't working more than the individual themselves over time.
  • Duck_Puddle
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,237 Member
    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    How does one decide what is unrealistic and what isn't? This whole idea of this conversion seems a bit presumptuous to me.

    Calorie burns that would go over 1000 per hour for moderately intense (and sometimes not even intense) exercise. 150+ calories per mile for miles computed from daily steps. My original question was sincere, not wanting to ridicule people. I see posted activity that would wipe out a daily deficit of 500 calories sometimes. It is entirely possible that some of these people don't know.

    I've done that before.. 1000 cals (ish) for an hour of cycling, moderate or whatever the equivalent is. It's because it was auto-logged when my garmin synced... but there was nothing moderate about it that ride, I promise you.

    And that was more my point. Yes, I'm sure there are plenty of hugely erroneous entries made every single day. But I also think that there are just as many (if not more) variables, unknowns, variations, etc that reading a simple diary entry and assuming it's wrong is just as likely to be arrogant and unhelpful as it is considerate and beneficial.

    But that's me, and I don't people very well... so maybe this is just something else I'm overly jaded about.

    This annoys me, and I've ranted about it before. MFP decides how to label the intensity just purely on your average speed. So the harder a ride is, the easier MFP says it was. Do hill repeats and it says leisurely cycling. Even when the data you sync has the intensity factor in it. Just riding around...

    I don’t have an indoor trainer-just a plain regular exercise bike. So I have to manually enter the distance - but not until after Garmin has altready synced my leisurely 0mph ride. It already has my cycling vo2max as “did you actually pedal?”. Clearly, Garmin is unimpressed with my cycling prowess.

  • tess5036
    tess5036 Posts: 942 Member
    No, I think most people don't want you to tell them
  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
    Mine syncs from my Garmin, usually with the HRM Run, so it should be pretty close. Nonetheless, it is automatic and I can't control it even if I wanted to.

    I don't think many / any of my friends actually are aware of or understand my current strategy, though. If they did, they would be talking about how many calories I eat, not how many I burn.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    How does one decide what is unrealistic and what isn't? This whole idea of this conversion seems a bit presumptuous to me.

    Calorie burns that would go over 1000 per hour for moderately intense (and sometimes not even intense) exercise. 150+ calories per mile for miles computed from daily steps. My original question was sincere, not wanting to ridicule people. I see posted activity that would wipe out a daily deficit of 500 calories sometimes. It is entirely possible that some of these people don't know.

    I've done that before.. 1000 cals (ish) for an hour of cycling, moderate or whatever the equivalent is. It's because it was auto-logged when my garmin synced... but there was nothing moderate about it that ride, I promise you.

    And that was more my point. Yes, I'm sure there are plenty of hugely erroneous entries made every single day. But I also think that there are just as many (if not more) variables, unknowns, variations, etc that reading a simple diary entry and assuming it's wrong is just as likely to be arrogant and unhelpful as it is considerate and beneficial.

    But that's me, and I don't people very well... so maybe this is just something else I'm overly jaded about.

    This annoys me, and I've ranted about it before. MFP decides how to label the intensity just purely on your average speed. So the harder a ride is, the easier MFP says it was. Do hill repeats and it says leisurely cycling. Even when the data you sync has the intensity factor in it. Just riding around...

    I don’t have an indoor trainer-just a plain regular exercise bike. So I have to manually enter the distance - but not until after Garmin has altready synced my leisurely 0mph ride. It already has my cycling vo2max as “did you actually pedal?”. Clearly, Garmin is unimpressed with my cycling prowess.

    I love it!

    I'm thinking about getting rollers. Last November it rained every day and I didn't want to deal with it in the cold and dark, and I don't think any of that will be any different this year.
  • wizzybeth
    wizzybeth Posts: 3,578 Member
    I stay out of it. Sometimes they know it but it is their fitness band or whatever and most people who are losing know how much they can eat and lose. I know what you mean tho. 1000 calories for a walk? I get 125.

    cleaning and cooking are my favourite ones... and anything from mapmywalk or mapmyrun

    I edit my burns from mapmyfitness by at least 50%
  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
    mitch16 wrote: »
    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    How does one decide what is unrealistic and what isn't? This whole idea of this conversion seems a bit presumptuous to me.

    Calorie burns that would go over 1000 per hour for moderately intense (and sometimes not even intense) exercise. 150+ calories per mile for miles computed from daily steps. My original question was sincere, not wanting to ridicule people. I see posted activity that would wipe out a daily deficit of 500 calories sometimes. It is entirely possible that some of these people don't know.

    I've done that before.. 1000 cals (ish) for an hour of cycling, moderate or whatever the equivalent is. It's because it was auto-logged when my garmin synced... but there was nothing moderate about it that ride, I promise you.

    And that was more my point. Yes, I'm sure there are plenty of hugely erroneous entries made every single day. But I also think that there are just as many (if not more) variables, unknowns, variations, etc that reading a simple diary entry and assuming it's wrong is just as likely to be arrogant and unhelpful as it is considerate and beneficial.

    But that's me, and I don't people very well... so maybe this is just something else I'm overly jaded about.

    The Mayo clinic compiled a big list of exercise burns for activities and for a person weighing 200 pounds, the two activities they found that were over 1,000 calories per hour were running 8 miles in an hour and, believe it or not, jumping rope.

    And even then I wouldn't trust someone who logs jumping rope for 60 minutes. That *kitten* is hard!

    I will go on record and say if you ever see me log jumping rope for more than about 30 seconds, I am lying. I have good coordination with a lot of activities but trying to do the little hops with the skinny exercise jump ropes just seems impossible. Even if I manage to get my rhythm, I am so tense I can't manage it long at all. I have bad knees, so I can't do it grade school style either (slower with big hops).
  • wolftrucking08
    wolftrucking08 Posts: 24 Member
    It's possible the estimated calories burned is incorrect.

    I just started using this a couple days ago: my new doc recommended it to track calories and activity.
    I question some of the calories burned; For example I went bow hunting yesterday; I had a total of 1 hour walking approximately 1/3 mile from my vehicle to and from my hunting spot, 4 hours standing and sitting. When I chose hunting general, it said I burned like 2,700 calories!!! Really!?
    There's no way I would burn that many in four hours of waiting, even if I was pushing game for others I'd question the amount.
    Mind you I'm stationary, hunting 100 - 150 lb white tail deer and black bear not 1000+ lb moose, so even if I had to drag anything out would that be accurate? BTW I went home without any fresh lean protein :neutral:
    If so then I'm a calorie burning machine LOL.
  • Lillymoo01
    Lillymoo01 Posts: 2,865 Member
    Unless a person is asking for help I get a giggle and move on as it is really none of my business. That being said, some might scratch their heads with my diary at times because I do what works for me.

    I sync Map My Walk here so my walks are automatically synced. I also have Pacer synced. I know that Pacer gives me a much more accurate calorie count but like Map My Walk logged so I have a record on here of how much I have walked in a day. When I go for a walk I just do a quick add of the calories burned in my food diary and at the end of the day edit my walks to 1 calorie and delete the quick adds. It works for me but could leave some people perplexed if they look at my diary during the day.
  • I log every lifting session as 45 minutes of strength training. I even call some heavy landscaping work 45 minutes of strength training. I do the same for a 3 hour dirtdining (motorcycle) session. I know none of those are 275 cals (the dirt biking and landscaping may be more, the lifting less). I set my TDEE one setting lower than it actually is, and log everything as 45 min strength training because it splits the difference between the 2 TDEE settings. So far, I have been right on target with my cal calculations for 3 months.

    Don't be so quick to judge. Sometimes people are more on point than your assumptions would give them credit for.
  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
    I saw on a news report this morning that they did some testing and found that people watching horror movies burned an average of 138 more calories than their normal sedentary burn rate. I really hope no tax dollars went toward that study.
  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
    It's possible the estimated calories burned is incorrect.

    I just started using this a couple days ago: my new doc recommended it to track calories and activity.
    I question some of the calories burned; For example I went bow hunting yesterday; I had a total of 1 hour walking approximately 1/3 mile from my vehicle to and from my hunting spot, 4 hours standing and sitting. When I chose hunting general, it said I burned like 2,700 calories!!! Really!?
    There's no way I would burn that many in four hours of waiting, even if I was pushing game for others I'd question the amount.
    Mind you I'm stationary, hunting 100 - 150 lb white tail deer and black bear not 1000+ lb moose, so even if I had to drag anything out would that be accurate? BTW I went home without any fresh lean protein :neutral:
    If so then I'm a calorie burning machine LOL.

    It took an hour to go 1/3 mile?!

    When I hunt, I prefer moving... obviously the burn you see is based on if you were hiking. If you are heavy enough, 5 hours of hiking might get close to that many calories.
  • cannedgoo
    cannedgoo Posts: 72 Member
    I turned off the automatic post for exercise from my Apple Watch.
    Why? Pokémon Go. It’ll submit every time I turn it on as walking, 2.0. I’d flood people’s feeds with it.
    Pair that with after the watch update it seems much more generous on calorie burn, I’ve been pretty suspicious of any active calories.

    So, when I see it from other people I don’t judge because I know my own exercise logs look extremely weird. As long as they’re meeting their goals and happy, that’s good enough for me
  • mitch16
    mitch16 Posts: 2,113 Member
    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    How does one decide what is unrealistic and what isn't? This whole idea of this conversion seems a bit presumptuous to me.

    Calorie burns that would go over 1000 per hour for moderately intense (and sometimes not even intense) exercise. 150+ calories per mile for miles computed from daily steps. My original question was sincere, not wanting to ridicule people. I see posted activity that would wipe out a daily deficit of 500 calories sometimes. It is entirely possible that some of these people don't know.

    I've done that before.. 1000 cals (ish) for an hour of cycling, moderate or whatever the equivalent is. It's because it was auto-logged when my garmin synced... but there was nothing moderate about it that ride, I promise you.

    And that was more my point. Yes, I'm sure there are plenty of hugely erroneous entries made every single day. But I also think that there are just as many (if not more) variables, unknowns, variations, etc that reading a simple diary entry and assuming it's wrong is just as likely to be arrogant and unhelpful as it is considerate and beneficial.

    But that's me, and I don't people very well... so maybe this is just something else I'm overly jaded about.

    This annoys me, and I've ranted about it before. MFP decides how to label the intensity just purely on your average speed. So the harder a ride is, the easier MFP says it was. Do hill repeats and it says leisurely cycling. Even when the data you sync has the intensity factor in it. Just riding around...

    I don’t have an indoor trainer-just a plain regular exercise bike. So I have to manually enter the distance - but not until after Garmin has altready synced my leisurely 0mph ride. It already has my cycling vo2max as “did you actually pedal?”. Clearly, Garmin is unimpressed with my cycling prowess.

    I love it!

    I'm thinking about getting rollers. Last November it rained every day and I didn't want to deal with it in the cold and dark, and I don't think any of that will be any different this year.

    Rollers scare me. I'm probably the only person who would crash her bike in her own basement while literally at a standstill. We have Kickrs and Zwift. Makes it a little like playing a video game when we're stuck cycling inside.
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    MikePTY wrote: »
    Part of the issue is with the MFP calorie estimators for exercise, which seem to be in active conflict with their activity multipliers. For instance, lets take a 30 year old, 5'4, 160 pound woman. BMR would be 1431, which means that if someone defined themselves as Sedentary, they would have a normal burn of 1717. Now lets say that person does house cleaning for a living. They have 2 options. They could choose their activity level as either "active" or "highly active", which would give them another 500-700 calories per day of budgeting. Or they could log 480 minutes of "Cleaning, light, moderate effort", which would likely say that they burned about 3x the calories than if they included that as part of their activity level.

    So I think a big issue with calorie logging is that logging basic household activities greatly overestimates the number of calories burned. Exercise is not meant to be done for hours. If a person finds themselves doing hours of a life related exercise on the regular, they should raise their activity level, rather than logging it as exercise. Exercise should be for specific acts of exercise outside of normal daily activity.

    Huh? Why not? And who didn't mean for us to exercise for hours?

    Yesterday I spent about 3.5 hours riding my bike up and down Sherman Pass. The day before I rode Loup Loup Pass, which coincidentally also took me about 3.5 hours. I work as a software engineer so sedentary is the correct activity level. Today it's stormy and the weekday riding is over.

    This is taking one sentence of a long post out of the context that was in the rest of the post. I was referring to basic daily activity that is recorded as exercise on the site, greatly overexaggerating the number of calories burned. Of course you can do real exercise for hours. But the exercise logging tool isn't effective for that for most people. Sure if you are marathon training or a distance cycler or an elite athlete, then the burn amounts may be more accurate. But a very small percentage of people ever burn thousands of calories from exercise a day. Which is a number that MFP will tell people if they log their basic activity as exercise.
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