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Why are exercise minutes mandatory?

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Posts: 7,241
6/17/11 10:27 A

I guess it's 'mandatory,' because unless you enter your calories yourself, about the only way to know how many calories you've burned is to count time as part of the equation. If you walk at 4mph, how will you know when you've burned 300 calories, unless you know how long you've walked? Measuring distance covered instead works for walking, but for ellipticals, etc., time's an essential element.

But you can customize, as others have said.

For me, sometimes, I don't make my calorie-burned goal; knowing that I exercised for 30 minutes, say, is better than thinking I 'failed' and 30 minutes is 30 minutes!

Posts: 149
6/17/11 8:50 A

It is an optional feature. If you go to the fitness page, at the very top there's a link to "change fitness goals" and then you can customize what you want to see to your heart's content.

SparkPoints: (1,703)
Fitness Minutes: (235)
Posts: 2
6/15/11 11:57 A

Well, yes, I could ignore it, but it's still mandatory in the sense that I can't not select it or not have a goal of minutes, which is what I meant and it kind of annoys me that it acts like you didn't meet a goal when you might totally not care about the minutes.

Posts: 2,537
6/15/11 9:51 A

If you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten (or something like that).

Posts: 15,397
6/15/11 8:00 A

Well said Psalm22!

Posts: 8,031
6/15/11 1:16 A

It's not mandatory. Rock bottom, nothing on the site is mandatory. You can pick and choose and adapt as you need to meet your goals and your way of reaching those goals. If you prefer to focus on the calories burned and not time spent, then do so and ignore any of the time components.

SparkPoints: (1,703)
Fitness Minutes: (235)
Posts: 2
6/15/11 12:46 A

I don't understand what the significance is of minutes is, especially having a mandatory goal. If you want to burn 300 calories a day, and you do so in less time than you anticipated, why should that count against you? This should be an optional feature, unless it is and I'm missing something. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

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