Did I really burn this many calories?

AndrewWood97
AndrewWood97 Posts: 22 Member
edited November 22 in Fitness and Exercise
Okay, so i'm 18 years old.. Weigh 167 pounds and am 5'7" tall.

I work as a Walmart Cart Pusher, and usually work about 5-6 hour shifts. I'm walking A LOT during my shift, along with pushing carts (clearly). I had the Fitbit Charge HR before, and it was telling me i was burning near 6,000 calories in one day, and MFP was telling me to eat 4,000+ calories in one day (WAY TOO MANY!). So someone suggested i just use a pedometer instead of the HR Compatibility, so that's what i'm doing...

I walked in my shift, 30,609 steps today (17.96 miles), and burned a total of 1878 calories according to my pedometer. I was wondering if that is even accurate.

If the calories burned is accurate/reasonable, should i keep my activity level on lightly active, or up it to a higher level.

I'm just curious, thanks in advance!

Replies

  • BasicGreatGuy
    BasicGreatGuy Posts: 857 Member
    Your Fitbit is wrong and your pedometer is at lot closer to reality.
  • piheart
    piheart Posts: 122 Member
    I feel like you are way more than lightly active if you are doing 30k steps at work every day. That's also just 5-6 hours of your entire day.
  • AndrewWood97
    AndrewWood97 Posts: 22 Member
    piheart wrote: »
    I feel like you are way more than lightly active if you are doing 30k steps at work every day. That's also just 5-6 hours of your entire day.

    I just changed my activity level to "very active" for a brief moment to see what it would say, it says to eat 2,630 calories to lose 1 lbs per week?!?!?! WOW!

  • texasf1ght
    texasf1ght Posts: 70 Member
    Say what now? 30k steps? I did a challenge once, and I'm a teacher who works outside of the building in a portable and even on that full day of working, PLUS walking home 3 miles, PLUS getting on the treadmill I still only hit like 24k on my highest day.

    I hope you have supportive shoes! :smiley:
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    edited August 2015
    AndrewWood97 wrote: »
    I walked in my shift, 30,609 steps today (17.96 miles)...

    That would require an average step size of nearly 1 full yard - 12 miles is a more appropriate estimate, and even that is probably high.

    ...and burned a total of 1878 calories according to my pedometer.

    167 * .3 * 12 -> 600-ish calories

  • editorgrrl
    editorgrrl Posts: 7,060 Member
    Your friend is wrong—set the HR to auto. Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), the calories necessary to maintain your current weight.

    Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit

    Set your goal to .5 lb. for every 25 lbs. you're overweight: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided

    Enable negative calorie adjustments: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

    Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal and follow MFP's, eating back your adjustments. No need to log any step-based activity—your Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time.

    You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    AndrewWood97 wrote: »
    piheart wrote: »
    I feel like you are way more than lightly active if you are doing 30k steps at work every day. That's also just 5-6 hours of your entire day.

    I just changed my activity level to "very active" for a brief moment to see what it would say, it says to eat 2,630 calories to lose 1 lbs per week?!?!?! WOW!

    Yes, this sounds reasonable. You may not believe it, but it's true. 30k steps/day is in the top one percentile of what a normal person would take.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    AndrewWood97 wrote: »
    I walked in my shift, 30,609 steps today (17.96 miles), and burned a total of 1878 calories according to my pedometer. I was wondering if that is even accurate.

    Wouldn't say that was unrealistic, maybe about 20-30% over.
  • AndrewWood97
    AndrewWood97 Posts: 22 Member
    Thanks everyone for the responses!!!! :) Very helpful, i was wondering why i wasn't losing weight when only eating 1,300-1,600 calories.. i ate 2,230 calories the other day and dropped a pound!
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    editorgrrl wrote: »
    Your friend is wrong—set the HR to auto. Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), the calories necessary to maintain your current weight.

    Context is everything, and I seem to remember you already put in this cut and paste response on the original thread.

    Given the situation described, HR is not a good indicator of calories expended. The originator did have HR enabled and had a completely unrealistic calorie burn over the course of a day. Having switched off HR tracking it's now more realistic, although still a little high.

  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    AndrewWood97 wrote: »
    Thanks everyone for the responses!!!! :) Very helpful, i was wondering why i wasn't losing weight when only eating 1,300-1,600 calories.. i ate 2,230 calories the other day and dropped a pound!

    If you were truly eating 1300 cals you would have lost weight.
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