Does steps taken count exercise at work?

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yodogerik
yodogerik Posts: 2 Member
in Getting Started
Hey, just got started and I’ve been using my account for a couple days. I was wondering:
If my work only includes walking, and my walking is already counted in my daily totals as “exercise,” then should I just say that my work includes “no exercise” (ala a desk job)?
I feel like if I count this walking in both, then it’ll be counting it twice as if I’m actually getting double that amount of exercise, which will lead to inaccurate calorie sums at the end of each day.

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  • seska422
    seska422 Posts: 3,217 Member
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    Are you using a tracker? If so, just link it to MFP and it will take care of the adjustments.

    Where the calories are counted from (as exercise or daily activity) really doesn't matter as long as you don't double-count.

    For example:

    A person who says that they are sedentary might get 1450 calories per day as a baseline and have 250 calories count from exercise for a total consumption goal of 1700 calories.

    That same person, if set to lightly active, could be given 1600 calories per day as a baseline and have 100 calories count from exercise for a total consumption goal of 1700 calories.

    The main concern is to experiment over time to see how your tracking conforms to your actual weight loss and tweak things as you go.
  • Emmapatterson1729
    Emmapatterson1729 Posts: 1,296 Member
    edited September 2019
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    I battled with this one too. My new job is 18,000-30,000 fast paced steps in one shift.

    I decided to change my lifestyle activity setting, which upped my daily calorie goal from around 1400 to around 1700. A couple of times, with a really rough shift, I add steps into exercise and eat more calories.

    Either way would work, but I thought it would be easier to change activity level rather than log steps everyday.

    I really try to keep things as simple and stress free as I can.

  • yodogerik
    yodogerik Posts: 2 Member
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    Well, all I have going on now is my pedometer on my phone. And I noticed that depending on how many steps I take, I “earn back” those calories and the app automatically puts it under Exercise. And it seemingly adds almost the same calories every day, because I take about the same amount of steps every day.

    So it I had it set to “sedentary,” it would give me a base calorie goal of about 1700. Then through my walking I would earn back 100 calories, making it 1800.

    But it I set it to “light activity,” it sets my base calorie goal to about 2000. Then through my same walking, I would earn back the same 100 calories, making it about 2100.

    It seems that if all you exercise is already accounted for with things like a pedometer (if you only walk like I do), then you should just leave it as “sedentary” and let the calorie adjustments happen naturally as your device adds back the calories depending on how many calories you burned through the day.

    Am I mistaken?
  • Lillymoo01
    Lillymoo01 Posts: 2,865 Member
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    Are you using Pacer? I found when using that it didn't make the calorie adjustments that a Fitbit does. Regardless of the activity setting, I got the same number of exercise calories. I set my activity level to the lowest and ate back all that Pacer gave me. That seemed to work fine with regards to expected my rate of loss and then maintenance.
  • Emmapatterson1729
    Emmapatterson1729 Posts: 1,296 Member
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    yodogerik wrote: »
    Well, all I have going on now is my pedometer on my phone. And I noticed that depending on how many steps I take, I “earn back” those calories and the app automatically puts it under Exercise. And it seemingly adds almost the same calories every day, because I take about the same amount of steps every day.

    So it I had it set to “sedentary,” it would give me a base calorie goal of about 1700. Then through my walking I would earn back 100 calories, making it 1800.

    But it I set it to “light activity,” it sets my base calorie goal to about 2000. Then through my same walking, I would earn back the same 100 calories, making it about 2100.

    It seems that if all you exercise is already accounted for with things like a pedometer (if you only walk like I do), then you should just leave it as “sedentary” and let the calorie adjustments happen naturally as your device adds back the calories depending on how many calories you burned through the day.

    Am I mistaken?

    That sounds right.

    I don't have anything synced up with MFP, so I rely on the goal settings in app.

    Someday, I might embrace technology, ;)

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