My Burn Calculator (How math, Nintendo, and ASU helped me learn about weightloss)

This is something I made before the data was available on apps and websites all over the place.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YbEexb8IvXv1m9Z6irkwrBggxOg9b8GKdrLA0mKDVE8/edit#gid=0

Have you ever wondered how apps like myfitnesspal, and others like it, determine the amount of calories you burn for a given activity? I have. Math in general has always interested me. In my workouts, I would notice that there were always big discrepancies between different machines and apps that I used. It was annoying to say the least. Then, one day, I was playing WiiFit (I'm dating myself) and I noticed a formula. I took a picture of it because it was the first time I actually saw a formula for burned calories.

So now I had to figure out what the hell a MET was. I searched for a while before I found the source that a lot of these apps and sites were using, the Compendium of Physical Activities. The following is an excerpt from the site:

The Adult Compendium of Physical Activities was developed for use in epidemiologic studies to standardize the assignment of MET intensities in physical activity questionnaires. Dr. Bill Haskell from Stanford University conceptualized the Adult Compendium and developed a prototype for the document. The Adult Compendium was used first in the Survey of Activity, Fitness, and Exercise (SAFE study - 1987 to 1989) to code and score physical activity records. Since then, the Compendium has been used in studies worldwide to assign intensity units to physical activity questionnaires and to develop innovative ways to assess energy expenditure in physical activity studies

Basically, they came up with the MET values for everything from brushing your teeth to walking at 3.5 MPH. They put all of these in a list and made them publicly available. So as long as the sites and apps used the same list, they should have the same results, right? Well, that wasn't the case. I noticed that there were sometimes big differences between the websites that I used. So I wanted to figure it all out for myself.

I copied the information from the compendium and put it into a google spreadsheet. Then, it was just a matter of applying the formula I learned from Nintendo. At some point, I decided to make it public. This required me to simplify the spreadsheet a little. Originally, it allowed you to pick several activities and would total them up for you, but many found it too confusing and were constantly breaking the spreadsheet by accidentally deleting the formulas. So I took it down to a single line for the activity and put in some more clear instructions. Anyway, Here it is. Try it out, and let know what you think.