[philadelphiab]

Does anyone know approx how many calories burned = 1AP? I meant to buy a pedometer but bought one that counts calories from movement based on weight rather than steps. I am taking the stairs at work and seem to be burning an average of 400 calories each day doing it (yay!) but am not sure how to track it. I have been marking down 2. Is there a formula?

Thanks for any thoughts

-Phil

[Kelly_S]

W/W officially doesn't do it that way but in very, very, aproximated it is about 100 calories burned = 1 AP.

[Ariashley]

I use a heart rate monitor for exercise and calculate 1 AP as 100 calories burned. The WW slider seems to approximate that and the etools seems to overestimate for a lot of activities.

Is that 400 calories ALL of your walking for the day or just special additional exercise on the stairs to go up a lot of flights in lieu of taking the elevator? While I've added some functional exercise to my day (parking further away and taking the stairs instead of the elevator) I don't usually count that as activity points - but our stairs are only a maximum of 3 stories.

I only count things over and above "normal" activities. So I don't count cleaning my house on Saturday - since I always have done that. But I might count scrubbing the heck out of the floor on my hands and knees, since I do that very rarely and it's pretty aerobic.

I figured I'd rather count a few too little APs than too many and then accidentally overeat.

[Kelly_S]

Originally Posted by Ariashley

I use a heart rate monitor for exercise and calculate 1 AP as 100 calories burned. The WW slider seems to approximate that and the etools seems to overestimate for a lot of activities.

I don't think it does. I think the individual over estimates their intensity level. I did a lot of research on heart rate (after a class and for a paper) and it takes a pretty good understanding of heart rate.

I hope that the mods don't poof the link because it can really help someone understand heart rate and intensity:

http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspart...tivity/thr.htm

here is another to help:

http://www.stevenscreek.com/goodies/hr.shtml

[Ariashley]

What I meant was that if you find an activity on eTools, it might say Step Aerobics is 8 points per hour, but depending on the difficulty of the class and your fitness level, you might only burn 500 calories and should only be recording 5 points per hour. I find that the eTools overestimates for specific activities saved in its database, but it does okay if you just use RPE (rate of perceived exertion).

The only other issue is they only really have 3 RPE - Light, Moderate, Hard when the RPE chart is often 1-10 from laying down to max HR. There can be a lot of variation between 4 and 7, which might all be considered moderate workouts.

[Kelly_S]

I'm not following in your last post. But for the most part the database (which I never ever use not even for food) can be off. I take my heart rate and breathing to judge the intensity and then plug it into the activity points calculator.

[Thighs Be Gone]

OP, how many flights do you walk? 400 calories? WOW!

[Princess0113]

i'm not sure there's any way to say how many calories burned = how many points because it varies for each person based on weight. as you lose weight, you earn less AP's for doing the exact same workout. a 30 min low intensity workout is 2 AP's for someone weighing 300lbs. that same workout is 1 AP for someone weighing 150 lbs.

[Kelly_S]

Princess, actually the W/W materials says that activity points average 100 calories burned but 1 AP could be more or less than that.