Saturday, March 31, 2012

MyFitnessPal Strength Calories?


I've said it once and I'll say it again, I love MyFitnessPal!  I had 1 complaint and I guess I wasn't the only one.  I would go out running for 15 minutes and add it to MyFitnessPal and see how many calories I burned.  Then I would go lift weights for 30 minutes and add it to MyFitnessPal only to see that calories aren't counted for strength training. 

First, let me explain why MyFitnessPal doesn't count calories for strength training.  So many factors are involved with weight lifting:

  • Person's weight
  • Person's level of fitness
  • Weight, repetitions, and form of exercise
  • Intensity
  • Resting time
You can see how this would be pretty difficult to calculate for each person individually.  You could take 2 completely different people and make them do the same exact exercise and they are going to both burn different calories.  Form is a big variable, some people go fast and loose and others are slow and refined.

MyFitnessPal does offer a little workaround for the issue of strength training calories.  Instead of putting the exercise in as strength training, put the exercise under cardiovascular.  When asked what type of exercise, just search for "Strength Training".  The calories calculated are low estimates to make sure that nobody is misled.

I hope that I helped to clear up this issue for those that wanted to know why MyFitnessPal wasn't giving credit for strength training.  If you have any other questions you would like to have answered, please let me know.

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