Do you have steps counter turned on/synced with MFP?

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Ducks47
Ducks47 Posts: 131 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
You can add either your phone or a tracker onto MFP. I was wondering if you guys turned this feature on? It adds about 200 calorie of exercise to my day.

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  • Duck_Puddle
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,224 Member
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    Yes. Because I don’t have to worry about days I was more or less active, or how many calories did I burn walking around town today, or should I take some off since I was feeling lazy today, or how far/fast did I walk/run on my workout...

    Some days I get 50 calories, some days 2000. Yesterday was 287 (no workout), today is 319 (including my 260 calorie workout). I’ve found that my weight changes right in line with eating (including the adjustments from trackers) so it works well for me.

    You can always try it, and if after 4-6 weeks of logging well, you find that you aren’t losing/gaining/maintaining as expected-make an adjustment then.

    I leave mine linked because it makes my like 10000 times easier.
  • RunnerGrl1982
    RunnerGrl1982 Posts: 412 Member
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    In my preferences, I do not have the step counter turned on. I generally average 6000 - 8000 steps daily before exercise; so I set my activity level to 'lightly active' instead of sedentary; therefore, I consider all of my walking around that rack up steps for the day within my normal every day lifestyle.

    I typically use my Garmin to sync all of my exercises to MFP, to include additional calorie allotments.

    I prefer this for myself since I like knowing I have a baseline calorie goal without calories being added or subtracted that's subjectively based on my step count. So, I solely rely on my Garmin exercise syncs to tell me how many extra calories a day I've potentially have.

    Everyone has a different preference, which is nice in general that MFP provides these kinds of options! So, if having the step counter option clicked on works for how you track, then that's awesome! :smile:

  • Ducks47
    Ducks47 Posts: 131 Member
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    I have mine set to lightly active but also counting steps. Is this counting the activity twice?? I don’t log my workouts.
  • Duck_Puddle
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,224 Member
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    I don’t know what tracker you’re using specifically, but most trackers send mfp a total number of calories burned for the day And MFP subtracts the calories it thinks you burned for the day (your activity setting plus any workouts that show in your diary) and the difference is what shows up on the “steps” line in your diary (although it has nothing to do wirh steps).

    It’s not double counting anything (unless there’s something funky about your specific tracker).
  • RunnerGrl1982
    RunnerGrl1982 Posts: 412 Member
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    Duck_Puddle wrote: »
    I don’t know what tracker you’re using specifically, but most trackers send mfp a total number of calories burned for the day And MFP subtracts the calories it thinks you burned for the day (your activity setting plus any workouts that show in your diary) and the difference is what shows up on the “steps” line in your diary (although it has nothing to do wirh steps).

    It’s not double counting anything (unless there’s something funky about your specific tracker).

    ^^ This.

    I was sitting here thinking attempting to write something out, but you explained this much more eloquently than I would have done!
  • stevee303
    stevee303 Posts: 13 Member
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    To ask the question a different way, if I tell MFP that I am lightly active, does it presume a certain amount of exercise (and therefore calories burned) when it sets my calorie limit? If it does then surely some of the calories I add back from my normal daily activity (walking) are being counted twice.

    If it doesn't, can you explain what it does with my activity level information.

    Many thanks.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    I never felt the need for that kind of accuracy, happy to just set an appropriate activity setting and let my high days and low days average out.

    Moving more definitely does have an impact and just seeing the steps on my phone is a good reminder to keep up good habits. When I had a desk job I was easily lightly active from simple habits of including walking in my commute, using the stairs and walking between offices.
    When I retired I had to bump up to active setting as I spend less time sitting down and more time moving around.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,596 Member
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    stevee303 wrote: »
    To ask the question a different way, if I tell MFP that I am lightly active, does it presume a certain amount of exercise (and therefore calories burned) when it sets my calorie limit? If it does then surely some of the calories I add back from my normal daily activity (walking) are being counted twice.

    If it doesn't, can you explain what it does with my activity level information.

    Many thanks.

    Think of it this way. If your tracker is synced with mfp, mfp will give you the amount of calories for lightly active but the tracker will override what mfp says because the tracker will know better since it has your movement to go on instead of just an arbitrary activity level setting. You're not double dipping.
  • stevee303
    stevee303 Posts: 13 Member
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    That's clear. Thanks!
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
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    stevee303 wrote: »
    To ask the question a different way, if I tell MFP that I am lightly active, does it presume a certain amount of exercise (and therefore calories burned) when it sets my calorie limit? If it does then surely some of the calories I add back from my normal daily activity (walking) are being counted twice.

    If it doesn't, can you explain what it does with my activity level information.

    Many thanks.

    You need to make sure negative adjustments is turned on. While using a tracker won't double dip, if you have a lazy day where your tracker shows you as less than lightly active, it will take calories away.
  • cheryldumais
    cheryldumais Posts: 1,907 Member
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    I do because I am set at sedentary and my steps add to my burn. I only get about 125 calories a day for 8,000 steps so I'll take em. There are days (Sunday) when I do absolutely nothing but sit so on those days I have to cut my eating back.
  • kylaaimee
    kylaaimee Posts: 21 Member
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    My garmin pro wont sync
  • witchaywoman81
    witchaywoman81 Posts: 280 Member
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    I have my Fitbit synced and negative calorie adjustments enabled. I have my profile set to “very active” because on a typical day I get anywhere from 12,000-18,000 steps/day. Most days I get “extra” calories on top of the mfp amount. I do tend to eat them, but I look at my allotted calories over the course of a week, so I’ll have a couple higher calorie days mixed in with a few lower calorie ones. So far this has not negatively impacted my weight loss. I’m down 4-5 pounds in 2.5 weeks.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    witchaywoman81 wrote: »
    I have my Fitbit synced and negative calorie adjustments enabled. I have my profile set to “very active” because on a typical day I get anywhere from 12,000-18,000 steps/day. Most days I get “extra” calories on top of the mfp amount. I do tend to eat them, but I look at my allotted calories over the course of a week, so I’ll have a couple higher calorie days mixed in with a few lower calorie ones. So far this has not negatively impacted my weight loss. I’m down 4-5 pounds in 2.5 weeks.

    that. im set to sedentary and even on workout days dont get that many steps, but same process... i dont log workout calories in mfp - just the time and then a '1' for calories burned. this is simply to track the workout in mfp.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,675 Member
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    I don't. I'm mostly sedentary, aside from deliberate exercise. I do a lot of deliberate exercise, which I log on mfp. The distances my watch gives me are not always the distances I actually cover, since I both run and walk with different stride lengths. I don't want to overstate my calorie burn. I'd rather understate it. If I did a lot of incidental walking, I'd probably sync my watch, but an occasional trip to the grocery isn't going to burn enough calories to be worth counting.

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