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mrandredparis
mrandredparis Posts: 12 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Each morning I go out for a power walk around the neighborhood. According to MyFitnessPal I am only burning about 167 calories? Then on every second day I do bands 10 pounds of 3 sets and 12 reps and supposedly I burn 430 calories. I feel more worn out on my power walk than my bands. Are these numbers accurate or should I expect that in the area of exercises MyFitnessPal should be taken with a pound of salt?

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  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
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    Grain of salt, but within maybe a 20
    percent plus or minus
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Each morning I go out for a power walk around the neighborhood. According to MyFitnessPal I am only burning about 167 calories?

    You haven't mentioned the distance or your weight which are the predominant factors on calorie burns for walking so impossible to have an opinion beyond MFP's walking estimates are normally too high (mainly because they are gross calorie estimates). Here's an alternative calculator and you would want to select the net calorie option - https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs

    Then on every second day I do bands 10 pounds of 3 sets and 12 reps and supposedly I burn 430 calories.

    Sounds highly unlikely - how exactly are you getting that estimate? What database selection? What time period? Doing your sets in a strength training style (with significnt rests between sets) or a circuit training style (little or no rest periods)?

    Are these numbers accurate or should I expect that in the area of exercises MyFitnessPal should be taken with a pound of salt?

    They don't actually have to be accurate, they just have to be reasonable. The walking might be reasonable, the band workout sounds highly dubious.

  • Dogmom1978
    Dogmom1978 Posts: 1,580 Member
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    sijomial wrote: »
    Each morning I go out for a power walk around the neighborhood. According to MyFitnessPal I am only burning about 167 calories?

    You haven't mentioned the distance or your weight which are the predominant factors on calorie burns for walking so impossible to have an opinion beyond MFP's walking estimates are normally too high (mainly because they are gross calorie estimates). Here's an alternative calculator and you would want to select the net calorie option - https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs

    Then on every second day I do bands 10 pounds of 3 sets and 12 reps and supposedly I burn 430 calories.

    Sounds highly unlikely - how exactly are you getting that estimate? What database selection? What time period? Doing your sets in a strength training style (with significnt rests between sets) or a circuit training style (little or no rest periods)?

    Are these numbers accurate or should I expect that in the area of exercises MyFitnessPal should be taken with a pound of salt?

    They don't actually have to be accurate, they just have to be reasonable. The walking might be reasonable, the band workout sounds highly dubious.

    I agree with this 100%. The walking sounds like it could be accurate. The strength training seems highly unlikely.

    Nothing is going to be perfect, but obviously we all try to get as close to the right reading as possible.

    Personally, I underestimate exercise to make up for any mistakes with tracking. My strength training is 5 exercises, 5 sets of 8-12 reps and I superset everything with almost 0 rest in between sets. I do this 4 days a week for 40 min to an hr. I log it as 150-200 calories. I most likely burn more than that, but this is working for me. I lose my expected 1 lb a week.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 7,425 Member
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    Interesting. Thanks for sharing @sijomial !

    I plugged this morning’s walk into it and was within 10% of what my Apple watch calculated. I entered the grade as 0 since I had no idea, but there’s def some grade, so that probably accounts for the 10%.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    @springlering62

    I got it from the very knowledgable @heybales :smiley:

    For my own normal speed walking I use the simple 0.3 X bodyweight in pounds = net cals per mile formula so I can do it with mental maths but as OP is "power walking" I thought a formula that takes speed into account might be more appropriate.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    The walking estimate can be provided by a lot of different apps (e.g., MapMyWalk) fairly accurately. Upper body weightlifting typically burns fairly low calories. I usually throw in a few minutes of "calisthenics" from the cardio menu on MFP. I use a lower amount of time unless I really minimized rest breaks.

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