Eating back Walking Calories???
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Hope_bay74
Posts: 273 Member
So, I'm a Fitbit user. I set my goal at 10,000 steps a day. That's just walking (no running/working out). My Fitbit syncs with my fitness pal and enters that as exercise and allows me the extra calories. Today, my 10k gave me 600 extra calories. To me, I don't feel that is real exercise and shouldn't be eating that extra food. If it was maybe 15-20K, I might then consider it. What are your thoughts around this?
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Replies
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I would be extremely careful eating them back. Using rough averages...
10k steps -> 7km -> 4.3 miles
4.3 miles * 150 pounds bodyweight * 0.3 calories/mile-pound -> 200 calories
Adjust for your own weight etc.
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Out of interest, why not trust the Fitbit? Until the past week, I've been averaging >20K/day (mainly from walking) and eating back (most of) the calories. I still lost weight - 92.5Kg down to 81Kg in around 3 months. That was on a 1Kg/week deficit, but my results were more like 0.5Kg/week (so make of this what you will).
I'm not trying to defend the Fitbit, as I'd love to identify the right figure. Mind you, I've moved over to lifting now, so upped my calories a bit so don't expect to lose so much. But that's another story....0 -
jtcedinburgh wrote: »Out of interest, why not trust the Fitbit? Until the past week, I've been averaging >20K/day (mainly from walking) and eating back (most of) the calories. I still lost weight - 92.5Kg down to 81Kg in around 3 months. That was on a 1Kg/week deficit, but my results were more like 0.5Kg/week (so make of this what you will).
I'm not trying to defend the Fitbit, as I'd love to identify the right figure. Mind you, I've moved over to lifting now, so upped my calories a bit so don't expect to lose so much. But that's another story....
What FitBit do you use?0 -
Charge HR1
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When I got my fitbit charge hr I was highly skeptical about the calories added. I would only eat back calories from actual workouts, not what fitbit sent over.
After awhile I noticed a trend. I was losing faster than expected. So I started eating back a little more. Still losing faster.
Then I realised that what fitbit was sending over was my total calorie burn for the day. Meaning I was burning a lot more than I originally thought just with daily activity. So I upped my activity level on MFP and started eating back a portion of the whole adjustment.
Currently I'm eating about 90% of what fitbit sends over (unless I'm really not hungry) and still losing at my expected rate, sometimes a bit more.4 -
Definitely don't eat your calories back.
I'm sceptical with the calorie burn counts with a lot of apps to be honest. Endomondo rates an hour of cycling sometimes over 1,500 calories (with all my weight stats incorporated) however this is completely different when I log it on here using MFP's defaults, and also different again if I were to do a similar cycle session at the gym. the values are all miles apart.
Assuming you're looking to lose weight/burn fat then the safest thing to do - in my opinion - is to use your food intake stats against your BMR to create the deficit needed to burn 1 or 2 pounds of fat etc, and just have your exercise as a healthy bonus on top.0 -
jtcedinburgh wrote: »Out of interest, why not trust the Fitbit? Until the past week, I've been averaging >20K/day (mainly from walking) and eating back (most of) the calories. I still lost weight - 92.5Kg down to 81Kg in around 3 months. That was on a 1Kg/week deficit, but my results were more like 0.5Kg/week (so make of this what you will).
I'm not trying to defend the Fitbit, as I'd love to identify the right figure. Mind you, I've moved over to lifting now, so upped my calories a bit so don't expect to lose so much. But that's another story....jtcedinburgh wrote: »Out of interest, why not trust the Fitbit? Until the past week, I've been averaging >20K/day (mainly from walking) and eating back (most of) the calories. I still lost weight - 92.5Kg down to 81Kg in around 3 months. That was on a 1Kg/week deficit, but my results were more like 0.5Kg/week (so make of this what you will).
I'm not trying to defend the Fitbit, as I'd love to identify the right figure. Mind you, I've moved over to lifting now, so upped my calories a bit so don't expect to lose so much. But that's another story....jtcedinburgh wrote: »Out of interest, why not trust the Fitbit? Until the past week, I've been averaging >20K/day (mainly from walking) and eating back (most of) the calories. I still lost weight - 92.5Kg down to 81Kg in around 3 months. That was on a 1Kg/week deficit, but my results were more like 0.5Kg/week (so make of this what you will).
I'm not trying to defend the Fitbit, as I'd love to identify the right figure. Mind you, I've moved over to lifting now, so upped my calories a bit so don't expect to lose so much. But that's another story....
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I love my Fitbit (charge HR) and I trust its step count. I think I will have to play around and see if I should be eating what it counts based on my walking. I am starting to increase my activity level as well. Thanks for all the thoughts around this.2
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Hope_bay74 wrote: »Today, my 10k gave me 600 extra calories. To me, I don't feel that is real exercise and shouldn't be eating that extra food. If it was maybe 15-20K, I might then consider it. What are your thoughts around this?
You burned calories whether you consider them "real" exercise or not. Just like you burn gas when you drive to work but also when you just circle the block trying to find a parking spot.
Why would you pay for and use a fitbit if you don't trust it?6 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Hope_bay74 wrote: »Today, my 10k gave me 600 extra calories. To me, I don't feel that is real exercise and shouldn't be eating that extra food. If it was maybe 15-20K, I might then consider it. What are your thoughts around this?
You burned calories whether you consider them "real" exercise or not. Just like you burn gas when you drive to work but also when you just circle the block trying to find a parking spot.
Why would you pay for and use a fitbit if you don't trust it?
Well if it's just a machine and can't account for how good or not so good of shape you are in. When I first started losing weight 18mon ago it was fairly accurate, now though I am in good physical shape it seems to overestimate my burn by about 20 percent.0 -
jeepinshawn wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Hope_bay74 wrote: »Today, my 10k gave me 600 extra calories. To me, I don't feel that is real exercise and shouldn't be eating that extra food. If it was maybe 15-20K, I might then consider it. What are your thoughts around this?
You burned calories whether you consider them "real" exercise or not. Just like you burn gas when you drive to work but also when you just circle the block trying to find a parking spot.
Why would you pay for and use a fitbit if you don't trust it?
Well if it's just a machine and can't account for how good or not so good of shape you are in. When I first started losing weight 18mon ago it was fairly accurate, now though I am in good physical shape it seems to overestimate my burn by about 20 percent.
Your level of fitness has relatively little to do with the number of calories you expend walking or running over a given distance, your weight does. It's mass over distance, there's not a linear relationship between heart rate and calories expended.
Here are a couple of formulae suggested by Runners World
walking .30 x weight (in lbs) x distance (in miles)
running .63 x weight (in lbs) x distance (in miles)1 -
I don't... but I only don't because I walk to burn calories.0
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BrianSharpe wrote: »jeepinshawn wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Hope_bay74 wrote: »Today, my 10k gave me 600 extra calories. To me, I don't feel that is real exercise and shouldn't be eating that extra food. If it was maybe 15-20K, I might then consider it. What are your thoughts around this?
You burned calories whether you consider them "real" exercise or not. Just like you burn gas when you drive to work but also when you just circle the block trying to find a parking spot.
Why would you pay for and use a fitbit if you don't trust it?
Well if it's just a machine and can't account for how good or not so good of shape you are in. When I first started losing weight 18mon ago it was fairly accurate, now though I am in good physical shape it seems to overestimate my burn by about 20 percent.
Your level of fitness has relatively little to do with the number of calories you expend walking or running over a given distance, your weight does. It's mass over distance, there's not a linear relationship between heart rate and calories expended.
Here are a couple of formulae suggested by Runners World
walking .30 x weight (in lbs) x distance (in miles)
running .63 x weight (in lbs) x distance (in miles)
my fitbit adjustment to mfp is pretty close to this, right now it's over by about 30 calories for the day, but i've also done 15 flights of stairs which elevates my heart rate more.
just noticed that you've debunked my heart rate / stairs theory. lol. back to the drawing board.0 -
Hope_bay74 wrote: »So, I'm a Fitbit user. I set my goal at 10,000 steps a day. That's just walking (no running/working out). My Fitbit syncs with my fitness pal and enters that as exercise and allows me the extra calories. Today, my 10k gave me 600 extra calories. To me, I don't feel that is real exercise and shouldn't be eating that extra food. If it was maybe 15-20K, I might then consider it. What are your thoughts around this?
If you're walking that much and don't want it to count as exercise up your activity level in MFP instead. Then Fitbit won't give you extra calories unless you go beyond that activity level.3 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Hope_bay74 wrote: »Today, my 10k gave me 600 extra calories. To me, I don't feel that is real exercise and shouldn't be eating that extra food. If it was maybe 15-20K, I might then consider it. What are your thoughts around this?
You burned calories whether you consider them "real" exercise or not. Just like you burn gas when you drive to work but also when you just circle the block trying to find a parking spot.
Why would you pay for and use a fitbit if you don't trust it?
I hear what you're saying, but for some of us, for some reason, the fitbit overestimates our calorie burn. If my TDEE was what fitbit says it is, i would have been at my goal weight eons ago. I wear it because it motivates me and i try not to eat more than 50% of my exercise calories back.0
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