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Why is tracking steps a thing?
Replies
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OP, before I got my Fitbit and started logging my food here, thought I was a reasonably active person and hardly ate much at all. But my logging showed me I was eating more than I thought, and my Fitbit showed me I was barely getting 5k steps per day. The activity tracker gave me an unbiased view of my activity level.
I do eat more when I walk more, but I'm logging so I eat the correct amount more. If I wasn't logging my food, I could see where I could overestimate how much extra food I was eating compared to the extra calories I'd used. Most of the knocks I've seen activity trackers take have had far more to do with people not using them in a well informed way. If you understand what degree of error is involved, how many cals you're burning, and how many cals you're eating, they can be quite useful for some people!11 -
Mouse_Potato wrote: »We are still pretty locked down where I live and I am working from home. I have a lot of meetings and I pace during those meetings. So far today I've logged just shy of 30,000 steps. That's a pretty significant amount of activity.
HOW can you get 30,000 steps while locked down at home? I struggle to reach that magical 10,000 that so many people talk about. I have two trackers, one set to 6,000 and the other at 7,000. Now I actively go for walks again I can actually reach get 6,000 easily in less than an hour, plus the remaining casual steps for the day.
I have a pretty small apartment and I still manage to pace a lot. I'll walk around my kitchen island while reading, at least at times when it won't annoy my husband.
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SnifterPug wrote: »We all know that the ten thousand step target was originally marketing blurb from a Japanese pedometer manufacturer, right?
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/10000-steps-a-day-or-fewer-2019071117305
The danger is if someone is caught up in all or nothing thinking or if 10k steps is causing harm like physical pain or crowding out more beneficial exercise. I personally found that up until 10k steps my shoes and socks didn't matter as much. After 10k they matter SO MUCH.3 -
Tracking steps is a great way to be more mindful of being more active. Giving yourself a goal of say, 10k steps per day gives you something to shoot for.3
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janejellyroll wrote: »Mouse_Potato wrote: »We are still pretty locked down where I live and I am working from home. I have a lot of meetings and I pace during those meetings. So far today I've logged just shy of 30,000 steps. That's a pretty significant amount of activity.
HOW can you get 30,000 steps while locked down at home? I struggle to reach that magical 10,000 that so many people talk about. I have two trackers, one set to 6,000 and the other at 7,000. Now I actively go for walks again I can actually reach get 6,000 easily in less than an hour, plus the remaining casual steps for the day.
I have a pretty small apartment and I still manage to pace a lot. I'll walk around my kitchen island while reading, at least at times when it won't annoy my husband.
I do that with social media! Kim, you're allowed back on twitter if you wander around the apartment as you scroll
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Decreased steps is one of the components of adaptive thermogenesis that leads people to not lose or lose less than expected. A tracker can give someone insight to when that is happening to take deliberate steps (pardon the double entendre) to fix that.
My recollection is that when I first started using a tracker, I spotted points where it started markedly changing. Initially my common use was just the heart rate for a stationary bike. Then I noticed as I was getting much closer to overweight rather than obese, my steps dropped from an unconscious 4,000 to 6,000 to just around 2,000 a day. Without that insight I could have easily been plateaued for a long time, and at best my solution would have been to drop calories even more, which probably would have been the harder route.7 -
magnusthenerd wrote: »Decreased steps is one of the components of adaptive thermogenesis that leads people to not lose or lose less than expected. A tracker can give someone insight to when that is happening to take deliberate steps (pardon the double entendre) to fix that.
My recollection is that when I first started using a tracker, I spotted points where it started markedly changing. Initially my common use was just the heart rate for a stationary bike. Then I noticed as I was getting much closer to overweight rather than obese, my steps dropped from an unconscious 4,000 to 6,000 to just around 2,000 a day. Without that insight I could have easily been plateaued for a long time, and at best my solution would have been to drop calories even more, which probably would have been the harder route.
I what's even meaningful there is what types of non-step activity had already reduced before you started moving less with steps and noticed it.
Perhaps not as big a calorie burn as the drop in steps, but research has shown it could still be decent amount.2 -
@DevilsFan1 wrote: »I honestly don't get it. Why are people tracking how much they walk around during the day doing normal activities? I suppose if you're always sitting that it could be a motivator to get up and move, but when I see people complain that their Fitbit isn't recording the steps they're taking when grocery shopping I am legitimately puzzled.
To add to that, it seems that many people who track steps think that gives them the license to eat back whatever calories their tracker says they are burning. Walking around doing things you normally do isn't really exercise that is worth tracking.
Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one.
I'm with you on this one. I used to have a Fitbit and gave it up after the third time it broke. I have my goal set for 10,000 steps a day and on many days would get those before noon because I walked a lot. I was able to determine I am more active than I give myself credit for.
I do think it's a good thing if it gets people up and moving but it's just a snapshot of your everyday life in my opinion. What if half of those steps are just getting off the couch to go get a beer from the fridge? You're not burning more calories than you're taking in.
Perhaps using a step tracker to set goals to break is the way to use it. Getting exercise calories for daily routine to me seems like you're just cheating yourself1 -
Well logically, the more you move the more calories you burn. And like counting calories, if you're steps are off, you aren't burning the calories you'd like to. To say that people "get a license" to eat back what they burn is pretty broad. I don't do that and track steps. And maybe they are taking extra steps. For example, if you did laundry and put it away one by one, although it's a regular chore to do, putting it away one by one burns more calories than taking less trips. That's just common sense. So I think you're just putting a damper on things. At the end of the day, if they took more steps one week than the week before, they're burning more calories right?DevilsFan1 wrote: »I honestly don't get it. Why are people tracking how much they walk around during the day doing normal activities? I suppose if you're always sitting that it could be a motivator to get up and move, but when I see people complain that their Fitbit isn't recording the steps they're taking when grocery shopping I am legitimately puzzled.
To add to that, it seems that many people who track steps think that gives them the license to eat back whatever calories their tracker says they are burning. Walking around doing things you normally do isn't really exercise that is worth tracking.
Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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AliNouveau wrote: »@DevilsFan1 wrote: »I honestly don't get it. Why are people tracking how much they walk around during the day doing normal activities? I suppose if you're always sitting that it could be a motivator to get up and move, but when I see people complain that their Fitbit isn't recording the steps they're taking when grocery shopping I am legitimately puzzled.
To add to that, it seems that many people who track steps think that gives them the license to eat back whatever calories their tracker says they are burning. Walking around doing things you normally do isn't really exercise that is worth tracking.
Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one.
I'm with you on this one. I used to have a Fitbit and gave it up after the third time it broke. I have my goal set for 10,000 steps a day and on many days would get those before noon because I walked a lot. I was able to determine I am more active than I give myself credit for.
I do think it's a good thing if it gets people up and moving but it's just a snapshot of your everyday life in my opinion. What if half of those steps are just getting off the couch to go get a beer from the fridge? You're not burning more calories than you're taking in.
Perhaps using a step tracker to set goals to break is the way to use it. Getting exercise calories for daily routine to me seems like you're just cheating yourself
You can take in more calorie than you burn even if your activity isn't walking to the fridge, I don't really get the point of this.
If my daily routine uses calories (which it does, my body can't do anything without using energy), then how is it "cheating" to eat in a way that fuels that activity?8 -
AliNouveau wrote: »@DevilsFan1 wrote: »I honestly don't get it. Why are people tracking how much they walk around during the day doing normal activities? I suppose if you're always sitting that it could be a motivator to get up and move, but when I see people complain that their Fitbit isn't recording the steps they're taking when grocery shopping I am legitimately puzzled.
To add to that, it seems that many people who track steps think that gives them the license to eat back whatever calories their tracker says they are burning. Walking around doing things you normally do isn't really exercise that is worth tracking.
Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one.
I'm with you on this one. I used to have a Fitbit and gave it up after the third time it broke. I have my goal set for 10,000 steps a day and on many days would get those before noon because I walked a lot. I was able to determine I am more active than I give myself credit for.
I do think it's a good thing if it gets people up and moving but it's just a snapshot of your everyday life in my opinion. What if half of those steps are just getting off the couch to go get a beer from the fridge? You're not burning more calories than you're taking in.
Perhaps using a step tracker to set goals to break is the way to use it. Getting exercise calories for daily routine to me seems like you're just cheating yourself
Why do you think you are getting Exercise calories from this?
You may be misunderstanding what is going on when you have it linked and syncing to MFP.
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janejellyroll wrote: »AliNouveau wrote: »@DevilsFan1 wrote: »I honestly don't get it. Why are people tracking how much they walk around during the day doing normal activities? I suppose if you're always sitting that it could be a motivator to get up and move, but when I see people complain that their Fitbit isn't recording the steps they're taking when grocery shopping I am legitimately puzzled.
To add to that, it seems that many people who track steps think that gives them the license to eat back whatever calories their tracker says they are burning. Walking around doing things you normally do isn't really exercise that is worth tracking.
Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one.
I'm with you on this one. I used to have a Fitbit and gave it up after the third time it broke. I have my goal set for 10,000 steps a day and on many days would get those before noon because I walked a lot. I was able to determine I am more active than I give myself credit for.
I do think it's a good thing if it gets people up and moving but it's just a snapshot of your everyday life in my opinion. What if half of those steps are just getting off the couch to go get a beer from the fridge? You're not burning more calories than you're taking in.
Perhaps using a step tracker to set goals to break is the way to use it. Getting exercise calories for daily routine to me seems like you're just cheating yourself
You can take in more calorie than you burn even if your activity isn't walking to the fridge, I don't really get the point of this.
If my daily routine uses calories (which it does, my body can't do anything without using energy), then how is it "cheating" to eat in a way that fuels that activity?
And I could lie on the couch for 23 hours and burn more calories without ever getting up than I would normally pull out from the fridge and plate in one trip. I don't see the logic in AliNouveau's statement, either.1 -
I have found my Fitbit zip to be very accurate for calculating my calorie burn. Of course I’m going to eat more if I take 15,000 steps in a day than if I get 8,000. Most of my exercise is step based, walking, hiking, so I count it. My fit bit zip is a step counter and doesn’t monitor heart rate either. MyFitnessPal tends to overestimate my calorie needs slightly. If I search exercises in myfitnesspal, I have found they are grossly overestimated. I don’t use the steps as license to eat whatever because I still track what I eat and try to stay within my calorie budget.1
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One effect of MFP (and probably "weight loss culture" generally) is - IMO - that people think of exercise as special, in weight loss terms. In MFP's standard process, we estimate it and add it separately, highlighting it as special. In "diet culture" more generally, there's lots of info suggesting that one ought to exercise as part of weight loss, or in some extreme cases, convincing people that they can't lose weight without exercising, or that exercise alone will accomplish weight loss.
Exercise calories are not special, in the body. Step calories are not special. In one sense, they're just like toothbrushing calories, or garage-cleaning calories, or changing-the-channel calories, or any other calories: We burn 'em, we fuel 'em.
In weight loss, gotta short-change the fueling a little (via either side of the equation, or combo of both sides). In weight gain, short-change the burning a little (again, by manipulating either intake or output or a combo). In maintenance, balance.
Yeah, people can screw up, and double count calories burned. That can happen if they put exercise in their activity level, then log it separately besides. It can happen if they put steps in activity level, then log those separately. It can happen by overestimating exercise, overcounting steps, or counting housecleaning that doesn't exceed the base activity level. Anything. Double counting, if of sufficient magnitude, can be a problem.
I'm cranky today, I guess. The idea that steps don't/shouldn't be considered, or a physical job doesn't matter, but that my heavy-lifting trainer-specified HIIT super-duper special intentional exercise Totally Counts for calorie burn? Kinda elitist, IMO.
Count what we actually do, with reasonable accuracy, no matter what it is. Don't double-count. Good enough.10 -
AliNouveau wrote: »@DevilsFan1 wrote: »I honestly don't get it. Why are people tracking how much they walk around during the day doing normal activities? I suppose if you're always sitting that it could be a motivator to get up and move, but when I see people complain that their Fitbit isn't recording the steps they're taking when grocery shopping I am legitimately puzzled.
To add to that, it seems that many people who track steps think that gives them the license to eat back whatever calories their tracker says they are burning. Walking around doing things you normally do isn't really exercise that is worth tracking.
Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one.
I'm with you on this one. I used to have a Fitbit and gave it up after the third time it broke. I have my goal set for 10,000 steps a day and on many days would get those before noon because I walked a lot. I was able to determine I am more active than I give myself credit for.
I do think it's a good thing if it gets people up and moving but it's just a snapshot of your everyday life in my opinion. What if half of those steps are just getting off the couch to go get a beer from the fridge? You're not burning more calories than you're taking in.
Perhaps using a step tracker to set goals to break is the way to use it. Getting exercise calories for daily routine to me seems like you're just cheating yourself
How is it cheating myself? I have worked hard to improve my NEAT to the point I earn 400-600 calories per day (unless I am really trying hard to rest on a rest day). I have verified over and over these calories are valid and must be eaten unless I want to lose faster than I should and risk being fatigued.
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Personally I'm a fan of metrics like steps; it's a lead measure where weight is a lag measure.
Lead measure: A measurement you have direct control over. Think "shots on goal".
Lag measure: The result of the lead measure efforts. Think "number on the scale".
You can only affect the number on the scale indirectly through effort. Focus on the effort and the results are all but guaranteed. I prefer caloric surplus/deficit over steps though.1
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