logging 10,000 steps as exercise?

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Christine_72
Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I recently purchased a pedometer and am smashing out 10,000 steps most days. I don't count the normal everyday steps around the house. I pretty much power march outside to get to 10,000. I have read that this amount of steps can burn between 400-500 calories...
My question is can i log those steps as exercise? I'd err on the lower side of say 300 calories, and if i have to, eat back half, but will try not to.

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  • dxp232
    dxp232 Posts: 28 Member
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    I think its more about the distance/time/weight then just the number of steps... When I was heavier walking burned a crazy amount of calories, now not so much. I would try something like runkeeper which lets you track distance vs time and gives you a fairly accurate calorie number (at least it has for me when compared to data i get from a heart monitor)
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    Aaah ok it probably takes me 8 hours to get to 10,000. It's 8,000 more steps then i had been doing :open_mouth: I work from home and don't get out much.
  • Timshel_
    Timshel_ Posts: 22,834 Member
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    Depends on how you want to log really. For me, I only log extra exercise I do in a day. I figure I set my activity to moderate which includes most daily movement, so only additional exercise gets added.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    I'm set to sedentary. For me power walking those steps is the most exercise I've done in a long time...
  • Timshel_
    Timshel_ Posts: 22,834 Member
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    If you are set to sedentary you might try logging it daily for a month and see if the weight loss expectations are what they should be. If not, you can modify what and how you log from there. Took me several months to get all the numbers to align so what I was tracking with food and exercise logged correctly with my MFP numbers.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    Perfect thank you. This is why I didn't want to eat back those 300ish burned calories just yet. So I could get an accurate account if it is making a difference or not.
  • hill8570
    hill8570 Posts: 1,466 Member
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    christinev297 wrote: »
    Aaah ok it probably takes me 8 hours to get to 10,000. It's 8,000 more steps then i had been doing :open_mouth: I work from home and don't get out much.

    Not sure what a "power march" is. Assuming it's something like walking, it's gonna depend on how long your stride is, but back of the envelope sez a step is about 2 feet, so 8000 steps is going to be about 3 miles. If you pop in an hour of walking at 3 miles / hour into MFP and then back off your RMR, you've probably got something in the ballpark.
  • abatonfan
    abatonfan Posts: 1,120 Member
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    I'm wondering the same thing. I'm set to sedentary in MFP but include exercise that I do while walking around my university (just walking a round trip from my major's main building to Starbucks for coffee is a bit over a mile/2000 steps), but I am only trying to eat back half of my exercise calories. I use MapMyWalk to calculate the calories burned, but they are just as high -if not higher- than MFP's estimated burn.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    Power march is the only way I could think of to explain. Any faster and I'd be jogging. Thanks for the tip. I'll head over and see what mfp comes up with.
  • TCO76
    TCO76 Posts: 242 Member
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    I recently switched to sedentary and started logging all things active. My phone tells me how many steps I take so I add them in and I have been loosing weight no prob. And yes I eat back my cals. Just an experiment I'm doing.

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