Activity level. Steps?

Skylark93
Skylark93 Posts: 1 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi everyone!
I have a question witch I guess it has already been posted before...
Because of my office job, and my 2 hours long daily drive to get to work, i don't get more then 2000 steps a day done (if even that!).
I am successfully using this app to lose weight setting my activity level as "not very active".
To get better results I was thinking to start going out for walks after work, and to count those extra steps with a step counter to add this activity as "Excercise" in myfitnesspall, as I am supposed to only eat 1270kcal a day, witch sometime can be a real challange.
Doing some google research, looks like the "not very active" Activity Level counts up to 5000 steps done daily. Does anyone know if that could be true?
That means that, as I am not even doing the half of those steps every day, but eating the full 1270kcal, I am actually still eating too much?
And if I go to walk, taking my daily steps to 5000 (for me still an big improvement) should I not insert this walks as "Exercise" to rise a bit my allowed daily calories?
I am really confused!
(I apologize for any grammatcal/spelling mistakes, english is not my first language)

Replies

  • puffbrat
    puffbrat Posts: 2,806 Member
    Everything is an estimate. If you go for a deliberate walk, I think it is reasonable for you to log that although you should be aware that many exercise calorie estimates are inflated. Just choose a method, try it for about 6 weeks, and then adjust based on your results.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Skylark93 wrote: »
    Hi everyone!
    I have a question witch I guess it has already been posted before...
    Because of my office job, and my 2 hours long daily drive to get to work, i don't get more then 2000 steps a day done (if even that!).
    I am successfully using this app to lose weight setting my activity level as "not very active".
    To get better results I was thinking to start going out for walks after work, and to count those extra steps with a step counter to add this activity as "Excercise" in myfitnesspall, as I am supposed to only eat 1270kcal a day, witch sometime can be a real challange.
    Doing some google research, looks like the "not very active" Activity Level counts up to 5000 steps done daily. Does anyone know if that could be true?
    That means that, as I am not even doing the half of those steps every day, but eating the full 1270kcal, I am actually still eating too much?
    And if I go to walk, taking my daily steps to 5000 (for me still an big improvement) should I not insert this walks as "Exercise" to rise a bit my allowed daily calories?
    I am really confused!
    (I apologize for any grammatcal/spelling mistakes, english is not my first language)

    Typically speaking, 5,000 steps is the line between sedentary and lightly active. No, that doesn't mean you're eating too much. If you have an activity tracker and it is linked to MFP, you don't need to log anything...it will give you an adjustment if your activity per your tracker exceeds what you've selected in MFP. I wouldn't log steps for 5,000 or less as that activity is already accounted for in your activity level setting. Still very much worth getting in some walking and exercise though. Regular exercise and movement is very healthy.
  • chrisscholes3843
    chrisscholes3843 Posts: 3 Member
    Download the mapmywalk app by myfitnesspal and link them together. Then when ever you go for a walk (for at least 30mins) start the mapmywalk app and get walking. After you've finished, it will report back to mfp how many steps you've done and how many calories you've burned. I've just walked 4.4m home from work and burned 654 calories. Just remember as you lose weight you'll burn less calories, so you'll have to walk longer/faster for the same calorie burn. You'll also have to update your profile on mmw every time you lose weight to maintain the accuracy of the calorie burn.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Skylark93 wrote: »
    Hi everyone!
    I have a question witch I guess it has already been posted before...
    Because of my office job, and my 2 hours long daily drive to get to work, i don't get more then 2000 steps a day done (if even that!).
    I am successfully using this app to lose weight setting my activity level as "not very active".
    To get better results I was thinking to start going out for walks after work, and to count those extra steps with a step counter to add this activity as "Excercise" in myfitnesspall, as I am supposed to only eat 1270kcal a day, witch sometime can be a real challange.
    Doing some google research, looks like the "not very active" Activity Level counts up to 5000 steps done daily. Does anyone know if that could be true?
    That means that, as I am not even doing the half of those steps every day, but eating the full 1270kcal, I am actually still eating too much?
    And if I go to walk, taking my daily steps to 5000 (for me still an big improvement) should I not insert this walks as "Exercise" to rise a bit my allowed daily calories?
    I am really confused!
    (I apologize for any grammatcal/spelling mistakes, english is not my first language)

    Typically speaking, 5,000 steps is the line between sedentary and lightly active. No, that doesn't mean you're eating too much. If you have an activity tracker and it is linked to MFP, you don't need to log anything...it will give you an adjustment if your activity per your tracker exceeds what you've selected in MFP. I wouldn't log steps for 5,000 or less as that activity is already accounted for in your activity level setting. Still very much worth getting in some walking and exercise though. Regular exercise and movement is very healthy.

    MFP's bar for sedentary actually seems to be below 5000, more around OP's 2000, to 3000. I average 5000 steps a day currently, and my TDEE is definitely above what MFP has for me at sedentary (pleasant surprise for not sedentary by choice me!!).

    OP, if you have a fitness tracker that you can link to MFP, it will start giving you additional calories once you're over whatever it is that is classed as sedentary. Or, you can set yourself as sedentary, and then just log how long your walk takes using the exercise database.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    @PAV8888 - you managed to work out the actual cut offs for steps/activity level, didn't you?
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,233 Member
    I would say that the normal cut off for most people would be at ~3500 with ~7500 being the limit of lightly active for most.

    First of all activity, any activity is great for the body. There is a reason trackers push the 250 steps an hour thing for health.

    If a step tracker is in this picture, connecting it to mfp gives you an infinite number of un-labeled activity settings as opposed to the four named settings your pre-select from when you pick your activity level out of MFP's default options.

    So if you connect an activity tracker, and you engaged in walking type of activities then I would not go out of my way to log anything: the activity tracker will take your walk into account, and if integration is enabled will give you more calories

    Whether you meet the settings definition or not is sort of irrelevant in reality. The question is how closely your expected rate of loss (based your logging) matches your actual weight trend.

    The reminder that trying to lose 1lb a week and giving up after 3 months because it was too much means you will lose just about 12lbs. But losing 0.5 lbs a week for 52 weeks, means you will lose 26lbs.

    Losing at a rate that allows you to be long term compliant wins!

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