Which calories burned are correct

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Chris144mph
Chris144mph Posts: 66 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
90 minutes of gardening

Fitday say 345cal burned
Mfp say 800

345 sounds more likely
Mfp seems to really overestimate calories.

Replies

  • KristiRTT
    KristiRTT Posts: 346 Member
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    800 is certainly too many- thats closer to 90 mins of run/walking intervals. I would think 300 is a closer guess. But I always subtract at least 15% of what my apple watch says I burned! I think that helps to eliminate the over predictions that happen often!
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,976 Member
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    It used to be that people could add their own Exercises to the shared database.

    When you do that, you enter *your* personal calories burned. Someone could conceivably have been 300 pounds in weight and could have been pushing a wheelbarrow and shoveling dirt for 90 minutes, in which case 800 calories is not outside the possible calorie burn...

    The problem with using any calorie burn is that it has to include the intensity and the weight of the person, and that's just not possible for an online calorie counting site.

    Gardening (to me) would be clipping and cutting and hoeing. That wouldn't burn much, but if I was doing heavy gardening work like lawn-mowing or moving trees, that could burn a lot.

    My solution to this common problem was to just pick a number and use it. After a few months I decided that my Exercise was going to be worth 300 calories per hour. That is a number I have used for ten years or more and it works for me. I tend to exercise at about the same intensity no matter what the chosen activity.

    So, you can use an online calculator, you can buy a Fitbit or something like it, or you can just pick a number, use it and then adjust if that seems to be way off (based upon your weight changes over TIME.)

    You can enter your own personal New Exercise and use it going forward. You don't have to use ones already in the database.

    Here: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/mine
  • Maxxitt
    Maxxitt Posts: 1,281 Member
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    The lower number is probably more accurate. That being said, "gardening" for me sometimes is a moderate weed-pulling and lawn mowing and at other times is a garden-bed digging, mulch spreading, and river-rock laying with multiple wheel barrow trips. Kinda depends on what you do.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,676 Member
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    It really depends on what you're doing. Weeding doesn't burn much. Double digging a garden burns a lot. Riding a lawn tractor doesn't burn much. Pushing a mower uphill does.
  • Dan2668
    Dan2668 Posts: 155 Member
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    ^ Yeah, gardening is a very broad term. If you're slashing through 6ft grass with a machete and chopping down trees, you're going to be burning more than doing some gentle-paced seed sewing.

    Personally for any garden based activity I count only steps, unless it's something quite rigorous like chopping logs.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,221 Member
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    I think the standard MFP gardening entry over-estimates for common activities (weeding, hoeing, etc.), but maybe not for really heavy work. If I have a big yard work day (multi-hour), I usually count it as if it were mostly walking at a slow pace (yeah, I stood still sometimes; but I did more vigorous things than walk sometimes, too - close enough). Small amounts of time, I don't bother to count.

    BTW: The MFP exercise database does adjust its calorie estimates based on your body weight, so you will get fewer calories for the same activity as you get lighter. But it's not very granular in the activities, as far as intensity level, so that's worth considering.

    Given two estimates, without any reason to believe one over the other, I'd normally use the lower of the two. ;)

    Good-quality fitness tracker devices seem to be fairly reasonable estimators for most people (those close to the mean of the underlying research studies), but they're possibly pricey.

    Best wishes!
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited May 2019
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    This got me curious.
    Since MFP database (and most others) are based on the METS database which is based on studies - what is meant by gardening?

    https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxjb21wZW5kaXVtb2ZwaHlzaWNhbGFjdGl2aXRpZXN8Z3g6MThkNTU1MzRiMjI1Yzc5YQ

    Gardening with heavy power tools, using chain saw, tilling a garden METS 5.8 (this is more than walking 4mph level)
    Average of 3 measures below
    ploughing 6.14 (Edmundson and Edmundson 1989)
    ploughing 5.17 (Fariduddin, Mujibur Rahman et al. 1975)
    plowing field 5.79 (Ramana Murthy and Belavady 1966)

    Whole other entry for age over 60 level of gardening. Even that seems like an extreme range, though I'm betting what most would consider gardening is the >60 items.

    Gardening, using containers, older adults > 60 years METS 2.3 (this is tad more than walking 2mph level)
    Average of 3 measures below

    gardening, filling containers with soil older adults >60yrs 2.0 ± 0.5 (Park, Shoemaker et al. 2008)
    gardening, mixing soil in containers, older adults >60yrs, light effort 2.2 ± 0.6 (Park, Shoemaker et al. 2008)
    gardening, mulching soil in containers, older adults >60yrs, light effort 2.5 ± 0.5 (Park, Shoemaker et al. 2008)

    And many of those studies (recent ones mostly) can be found online to see what they tested.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4469628/


    I can't discern from the comments made in this topic which one MFP kept in their database. (or perhaps like swimming they averaged the 2 available ones.

    But BMR/1440 = 1 MET

    personal MET x METS above x min = calorie burn
  • Chris144mph
    Chris144mph Posts: 66 Member
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    Thanks all
    Think I'll split it as it was digging ground over so it could be levelled properly! Had me out of breath!

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