Walking as exercise calories

ForeverSunshine09

I include my purposeful walking which is 30-60 mins a day with a hrm and depending on where I walk or how fast I can burn about 500 an hr. Only because I wear leg braces so it takes more effort to walk for me than some ppl. It is like a weighted walk kind of. I still usually only eat about 50% of them except occasionally all of them.

maxit

I "ate back" all the walking calories FB gave me when I was losing weight and am doing the same in maintenance. I have MFP set on "sedentary" since my activity varies. Seems to be working fine.

shortntall1

I do 5k, 4 times a week. I do not work outside the home..is lightly active ok for me? I burn from 300 to 350 cal depending on the incline. I do not eat back my calories..maybe I should?

silentnite2608

*Don't mean to bring an old post back to life.*
But I run in the morning (4-6 miles) and walk about another (6-8 miles) about 20,000/25,000 steps a day. (Army)
At the end of the day My exercise calories go thou the roof nearing 3,000-4,000?

Fitbit surge to MFP.
MFP is only getting the steps and making the calculations.
Do I need to update my active level and to which one?

scolaris

I use a Fitbit HR charge set to sedentary and I use any calories it gives me and just base my deficit off what I've earned in total. I walk 100k steps a week as my goal. I get the biggest burns for terrain hikes with lots of elevation change, usually anywhere from 8-15 miles. Next biggest burn is a five mile urban loop up a very large steep hill. Right behind that is one hour of Zumba. So yeah, I count my walking! What I don't count is lifting (free weights) and yoga. The HR doesn't capture those activities well so I don't log them and I figure any calories burned there evens out any inaccuracies in my food logging. It amounts to about 5-6 hours of activity a week out of a total of 15 hours or so.

karintirasin

I use runkeeper (free app) and it is very reliable and accurate. It tracks your walk/run and takes your age/weight into consideration plus communicates with Myfitnesspal. When I run for 35 min (jog) it usually "gives" me about 300 calories. I sometimes eat back all of my exercise calories, but usually try to only eat back about 50-75% of them. I have consistently lost 1 kg a week since I started (10 kg now).

emmycantbemeeko

I usually eat back my walking calories... but they're based on the adjustments fitbit gives me, not MFPs estimates, which seem high to me. I still lose at a higher-than-projected rate most weeks, so it's working.

Walking is, frankly, much better exercise than most people give it credit for.

mitch16

silentnite2608 wrote: »

*Don't mean to bring an old post back to life.*
But I run in the morning (4-6 miles) and walk about another (6-8 miles) about 20,000/25,000 steps a day. (Army)
At the end of the day My exercise calories go thou the roof nearing 3,000-4,000?

Fitbit surge to MFP.
MFP is only getting the steps and making the calculations.
Do I need to update my active level and to which one?

Is there a chance that you are mistaking total calories burned for exercise calories on your fitbit? A decent rule of thumb for walking/running is 100 calories per mile for a ~155 lb person. (http://www.runnersworld.com/peak-performance/running-v-walking-how-many-calories-will-you-burn)

What you do with the calories burned number is kind of up to you... What are your goals? Are you trying to lose weight? Maintain? Gain? If I'm not mistaken, if you are synching your fitbit with MFP, then activity level is somewhat irrelevant--to lose you need to eat less than the calorie burn that fitbit is giving you, to gain you need to eat more. However, there is still the chance that the fitbit is over- or under-estimating your burn--you would need to make some tweaks to your calories in to meet your goals.

kshama2001

emmycantbemeeko wrote: »

I usually eat back my walking calories... but they're based on the adjustments fitbit gives me, not MFPs estimates, which seem high to me. I still lose at a higher-than-projected rate most weeks, so it's working.

Walking is, frankly, much better exercise than most people give it credit for.

Right. I don't understand why some people think you have to run to burn calories.