Do you use the Under Armour: Map My Fitness App?

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Rannoch3908
Rannoch3908 Posts: 177 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So MFP suggested that I use the Under Armour: Map My Fitness App -- I think because they are owned by the same company.

It appears to track workouts like biking, walking, running, and hundreds of others as well as maybe gym workouts. It doesn't look like it tracks steps (just walking around during day) - am I right?

Is this the best option since it syncs to MFP or do you like another one?

AND - should I be eating back the calories it says that I burn? I went on a 15 minute slow bike ride around the neighborhood today and it said I burned 150 calories - seems high!!!

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  • HeidiCooksSupper
    HeidiCooksSupper Posts: 3,831 Member
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    I use it simply to measure the lengths of my walks. Since my pace of walking is pretty consistent at 26 -27 minutes/mile, I use that to figure out how long I am actually walking as opposed to talking to neighbors. Then I use that to figure out how many minutes I walked net.

    Yes, a 26 minute or so mile. I have the stride of a chihuahua. A mile is about 2500 or so steps for me. I'm an old lady with an upright walker. You got a problem wid dat?
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    Why do you think the calorie burn for the bike ride is high?

    Just curious as most people that have never gotten into calorie burns would have no idea.

    It's also accounting for the fact 20-50 cal of it was your base metabolism burn.

    They are owned by same company - it may not be the best option for what you want to do, but can't hurt to try it and see (probably better than MFP exercise diary limited info for reviewing workouts).

    Your MFP app can be set to track steps directly off the phone it's running on - if you carry your phone with you everywhere. Don't bother if it's not - inaccurate data used in math - not good.

    Many like Strava for logging types of workouts and it syncs with MFP also.

    And the lesson MFP is trying to teach about weight management.
    You do more, you eat more.
    You do less, you eat less (the kicker for most).

    In a diet a tad less in either case.

    So MFP is estimating calorie burn with NO consideration of exercise being done. Hopefully you selected correct activity level for the full day of activity that references no exercise accounted for.
    So when you do more, you eat more.
    So yes you eat it back.

    Due to the way MFP adds exercise though, workouts that are low calorie burn (like that ride) that you might do for awhile (more than 15 min), probably should have their calorie burn cut in half. Maybe just 25% taken off.
    Short high intensity stuff doesn't matter as much and can be left alone.
    This applies to database entries or a workout from that app or Strava - where only the workout is coming through.
  • slade51
    slade51 Posts: 180 Member
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    Ive been using Map My Walk/Map My Ride/Map My Fitness to track my distance along with My Fitness Pal for tracking weight & food. It works well for me. I use calories as a general guide, knowing they are way off for detailed counters.

    My iPhone is overloaded with apps, so I’m deleting MMW/MMR and will log all in MMF. They sync to the same database, so I won’t be losing any functionality.
  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,365 Member
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    I use MapMyWalk to track my walks because I like to get in 3 miles on my lunch hour. Other walks I track because I'm curious about the distance. It was being glitchy earlier this year but I think that was probably the GPS on my phone, I was losing about half a mile because it wasn't picking up right away.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Rannoch3908 wrote: »

    I went on a 15 minute slow bike ride around the neighborhood today and it said I burned 150 calories - seems high!!!

    Whole lot of depends!
    Depends how big you are, what terrain you rode over, what bike you ride, what you mean by slow, overall on how much power you produced.....
    The number is well within the range of possible, but that range of possible is very wide.

    I've got a vague feeling that MMF uses the same METS as MyFitnessPal uses - which TBH are both gross calories and also very high for my kind of bike and riding which may of course be very different to yours.

    For a comparison you could download Strava, set it up to match you and your bike and then you will get a gross cal estimate based on what it assumes your power output to be. That's a far better basis rather than speed.
    If you take the ride's "total work" in kilojoules that number translates to net calories (but it's still an estimate without a power meter).

    In example below 414 cals is a net calorie estimate based on assumed power.
    462 cals is a gross calorie estimate.

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  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,897 Member
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    Rannoch3908 wrote: »
    So MFP suggested that I use the Under Armour: Map My Fitness App -- I think because they are owned by the same company.

    It appears to track workouts like biking, walking, running, and hundreds of others as well as maybe gym workouts. It doesn't look like it tracks steps (just walking around during day) - am I right?

    Is this the best option since it syncs to MFP or do you like another one?

    AND - should I be eating back the calories it says that I burn? I went on a 15 minute slow bike ride around the neighborhood today and it said I burned 150 calories - seems high!!!

    I'm curious to hear from people who sync MapMyFitness to MFP. I don't sync and the burns are indeed super high. I think they might be including my BMR and not just the exercise, and wondering if syncing fixes this.

    I'm currently just using it for the GPS, which is useful when I am discovering new trails in the woods, mostly made by mountain bikers following deer trails.
  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,365 Member
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    kshama2001 wrote: »
    I'm curious to hear from people who sync MapMyFitness to MFP. I don't sync and the burns are indeed super high. I think they might be including my BMR and not just the exercise, and wondering if syncing fixes this.

    Syncing just tacks the calories burned onto the ones I've already manually added from my morning workout. There's no adjustment, it's the same number the app calculates when I tell it my walk is finished. Which, for close to an hour of walking at a moderate 17 - 18 minute/mile pace, is usually around 200.

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