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How does My Fitness Pal calculate calories burned?


Night Elf
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I walk at 3.5 mph for 30 minutes and it says I have burned 115 calories. But that can't be true for everyone, can it? Doesn't it depend on weight and how hard you're working? I have mild labored breathing. I can talk while I walk. I'm sure I could walk faster which would mean working harder. But what about someone who walks the same speed and length of time but has a much more difficult time keeping up with it? Wouldn't they be burning more calories? Or is MFP using some sort of standard settings and anyone who walks that speed and length of time is burning the same amount of calories? I'm just trying to figure out how they calculate what I've personally burned.

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I would assume they calculate it using some formula that takes into account your weight, age and sex (which I assume you've entered). My DH is much bigger than me. He'll burn more calories walking the same distance at the same speed because he's moving more weight than I am. It takes more energy (calories) to move 200 pounds over a given distance than it does to move 110 pounds. I don't think the degree of effort needed/amount of exertion one feels is an indication of the calories being burned. But I certainly could be wrong.

 

ETA: I doubt I'd trust their figures anyway. I certainly wouldn't assume they're anything more than an estimate with a pretty wide margin of error. Unless you're in a lab it's all guesswork. So many factors come into play--age, sex, total body weight, how that weight is distributed (amount of muscle versus amount of fat), etc. Even the altitude at which the exercise is performed can make a difference in calories burned.

Edited by Pawz4me
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I walk at 3.5 mph for 30 minutes and it says I have burned 115 calories. But that can't be true for everyone, can it? Doesn't it depend on weight and how hard you're working? I have mild labored breathing. I can talk while I walk. I'm sure I could walk faster which would mean working harder. But what about someone who walks the same speed and length of time but has a much more difficult time keeping up with it? Wouldn't they be burning more calories? Or is MFP using some sort of standard settings and anyone who walks that speed and length of time is burning the same amount of calories? I'm just trying to figure out how they calculate what I've personally burned.

 

I know that if I don't enter my personal info into cardio machines, they default to their own age and weight settings.  I would assume My Fitness Pal would do the same, except who uses MFP without entering their age and weight?

 

Technically, a person who is putting more "work" into the same time/distance activity at the same age, weight, and general BMI is probably burning a few extra calories, but not a significant amount more.  Their cardiovascular system is working harder, but that doesn't take as many calories as the skeletal-muscular system does. Their skeletal-muscular system may feel more uncomfortable with the work, but it's still doing the same work.

 

Trying to pull dusty brain files on Daylight Savings Time... I want to say that the more-exerted person *might experience a greater "after-burn" as their body goes into recovery mode, adapting to the effort.  But even that is going to be of little significance on a 115-ish calorie activity, and would likely only happen for a couple of sessions before their body does adapt to the activity.

 

Bottom line, there is no formula that accounts for every single individual body *perfectly*.  There are too many variables that you can't answer outside of an expensive lab on a very frequent basis.  But 5-20 calories here and there have no real impact on results unless "here and there" becomes almost everywhere.

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I know that if I don't enter my personal info into cardio machines, they default to their own age and weight settings.  I would assume My Fitness Pal would do the same, except who uses MFP without entering their age and weight?

 

I've done this both ways and the estimates are barely different.

 

I'm sure it isn't super accurate.  I just use it as a sort of baseline to see if I've done more or less, but I know it's not exact. 

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I found a calculator online that asked for the same information MFP does and it calculated my calories burned as 132 so not much different than 115. I was just curious. I feel like that walk is such a nuisance that I should be burning twice that to make it worthwhile! :) Good thing I'm not walking for weight loss. I'm not even trying to lose weight. I'm just trying to get some cardio in. 

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I found a calculator online that asked for the same information MFP does and it calculated my calories burned as 132 so not much different than 115. I was just curious. I feel like that walk is such a nuisance that I should be burning twice that to make it worthwhile! :) Good thing I'm not walking for weight loss. I'm not even trying to lose weight. I'm just trying to get some cardio in. 

 

Story of my life.  Sometimes after a workout I think damn I KNOW I burned 3x as many calories than stated on the machine because it almost killed me.  :laugh:

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It's super inaccurate. But, that said, it is very difficult to do accurately. Determining calories burned is a very tricky thing to do, taking into account your hydration levels, respiratory rate, fitness level, age, how much sleep you have had...it's not easy. But it's nice to get a rough idea

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