Can I record steps as an exercise

Lietchi

Without knowing the data you entered, the number you were given or the calculator used (the calculator.net one above?), it's hard to comment 🙂
Did you perhaps use a wrong unit for entering your data (weight in kg but the unit on the website was in lbs, for example)?

justanotherloser007

The data input, Age 48 female 5'3' 130 pounds sedentary, calories per day to maintain: 1427 (actually this sounds right to me). But the calculator.net says after it gives me the stats: The number of Calories required to maintain your weight seems low. Look I am an older, short punk who randomly has good days so I am usually sedentary.

So on days (holidays or Sundays) I don't actively diet, 1200 cal per day, I maintain what will be my life when I get to 130 pounds. Which is solidly do able, as a kid I was this weight and super active and could eat 1800 cal per day thereabouts. But I am sedentary due to chronic illness that started when I was 21 years old. Maybe I can move, maybe I can't, but I certainly am currently incapable of anything other than maybe light exercise occasionally.

Lietchi

It's certainly a strange thing that they would mention the number of calories seems low. Based on some experimentation, I think their cutoff is somewhere around 1450 calories for saying the number is low. I think it's simply to do with their cutoff being 1200 for weight loss (just like MFP) which leaves little room to maneuver for weight loss.

justanotherloser007

I have heard of older shorties, like me and some 5 footers and shorter really making weight loss 1000 to 1200 cal/day. My guess is that they don't want the young people getting all anorexic on apps. But if I could sustain a 1000 to 1200 cal day for weight loss I do. And I have, but if you are a nice height I would NEVER recommend this, nor if you are a young person nor an active person.

MargaretYakoda

kshama2001 wrote: »

MargaretYakoda wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

You can enter it as walking, if you know the time/distance.
Don't forget that a certain amount of activity (steps) is already included in your activity level, even sedentary includes probably the equivalent of around 3000 steps, so you don't want to add all of your steps as exercise or you'll be double-counting.

Is there any way to check if that sedentary = 3000 steps is true? Because that could be a factor for some disabled people (myself included) who are trying to lose weight.

I have kept my calories intentionally low because I suspected it might be the case. But I’d like to be sure. At my height and current weight that’s about 150 calories.

I think you should just use your data. If, over at least a month, you eat back all your steps and lose slower than expected, try not eating back 2,000 or so of them and see what happens after another month.

Or, as you are currently keeping your calories low - are you losing a little faster than expected? In that case, do eat back more steps.

When I think of "sedentary" I think of my partner's now deceased mother. She certainly got no where near 3,000 steps per day, so it is hard for me to think of that as the threshold for sedentary.

Apple Fitness says I have 3812 steps so far today. But that includes last night’s (after midnight) recumbent elliptical session.

My actual activity has been a few times to the bathroom, then back to my seat. Like almost every other day. Because that’s what I am able to do. Even showering is an “only sometimes, if I have the spoons” activity for me. If I do two loads of laundry in one day, that’s some big effort.

stealthette wrote: »

MargaretYakoda wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

You can enter it as walking, if you know the time/distance.
Don't forget that a certain amount of activity (steps) is already included in your activity level, even sedentary includes probably the equivalent of around 3000 steps, so you don't want to add all of your steps as exercise or you'll be double-counting.

Is there any way to check if that sedentary = 3000 steps is true? Because that could be a factor for some disabled people (myself included) who are trying to lose weight.

I have kept my calories intentionally low because I suspected it might be the case. But I’d like to be sure. At my height and current weight that’s about 150 calories.

I finally figured out a way to suss this out properly. It turns out sedentary does include general chores around the house, showering, and even gardening one article mentioned! You can read about that here: https://antranik.org/proper-activity-level-for-calorie-intake/

Anyway, here's how to work out your own. If you use https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html which has the same stats as what MFP is using, you can ask it your BMR that's the calories you need to sleep all day. And then ask it your sedentary calories, a bit of subtraction and you will get the answer for you personally.

For example, mine is 1412 sedentary - 1177 BMR = 235 calories MFP is assuming I'm burning daily being sedentary.

Thanks so much for this!
So yes. I’ll figure out my stats this way.
This could easily be a factor in why some disabled people have a problem losing anything. They put in “sedentary” thinking it means their level of physical activity, but if that’s not accurate for them, then that will be a problem.

heybales

MargaretYakoda wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

You can enter it as walking, if you know the time/distance.
Don't forget that a certain amount of activity (steps) is already included in your activity level, even sedentary includes probably the equivalent of around 3000 steps, so you don't want to add all of your steps as exercise or you'll be double-counting.

Is there any way to check if that sedentary = 3000 steps is true? Because that could be a factor for some disabled people (myself included) who are trying to lose weight.

I have kept my calories intentionally low because I suspected it might be the case. But I’d like to be sure. At my height and current weight that’s about 150 calories.

It came from when people first starting getting and syncing Fitbits and Garmins to MFP, and asking questions about adjustments they would see of extra calories.

People would say they were sedentary because of having a desk job, and forget about the other 16 hrs of the day and weekend (especially with family stuff) - and discovered around 3-5K steps started giving them calorie adjustments showing they were more than sedentary.

It's not the steps, it's the distance actually, and calorie burn calculated from that. Pace and mass are very accurate for calorie burn calculation.
A ton of grocery store shuffle steps obviously doesn't burn as much as purposeful fast paced walking.

And that fact of Sedentary including some level of activity is absolutely a factor when you can't do average activity.
Sedentary value easily could be inflated estimate.

Now - devices I've seen so far all give any non-step time a BMR rate of burn, and that's just not true if you are awake for one thing, digesting food adds extra, moving arms but not getting steps, ect.

And syncing a device even with MFP's option to Enable Negative Adjustments, won't drop below 1200 minimum, so you may not get the adjustment needed to truly create say a 500 cal deficit.
Then again that may not be a reasonable deficit, unless over 15 lbs to lose generally.

ETA:
Found a place I had mathed it out years ago. This is for the 1.25 Sedentary activity factor.
Sedentary is base activity that is built on, which already includes weekly - 45 hr work sitting, 56 hr sleeping, 60 hr sitting/standing, 7 hr slow walking

Slow means under 2mph.
105 hr sitting basically awake, burns slightly higher rate than the 56 hr sleeping BMR rate.
But standing actually burns more than sitting of course by small amount.

Taken to daily level, it really isn't much anyway.

MargaretYakoda

heybales wrote: »

MargaretYakoda wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

You can enter it as walking, if you know the time/distance.
Don't forget that a certain amount of activity (steps) is already included in your activity level, even sedentary includes probably the equivalent of around 3000 steps, so you don't want to add all of your steps as exercise or you'll be double-counting.

Is there any way to check if that sedentary = 3000 steps is true? Because that could be a factor for some disabled people (myself included) who are trying to lose weight.

I have kept my calories intentionally low because I suspected it might be the case. But I’d like to be sure. At my height and current weight that’s about 150 calories.

It came from when people first starting getting and syncing Fitbits and Garmins to MFP, and asking questions about adjustments they would see of extra calories.

People would say they were sedentary because of having a desk job, and forget about the other 16 hrs of the day and weekend (especially with family stuff) - and discovered around 3-5K steps started giving them calorie adjustments showing they were more than sedentary.

It's not the steps, it's the distance actually, and calorie burn calculated from that. Pace and mass are very accurate for calorie burn calculation.
A ton of grocery store shuffle steps obviously doesn't burn as much as purposeful fast paced walking.

And that fact of Sedentary including some level of activity is absolutely a factor when you can't do average activity.
Sedentary value easily could be inflated estimate.

Now - devices I've seen so far all give any non-step time a BMR rate of burn, and that's just not true if you are awake for one thing, digesting food adds extra, moving arms but not getting steps, ect.

And syncing a device even with MFP's option to Enable Negative Adjustments, won't drop below 1200 minimum, so you may not get the adjustment needed to truly create say a 500 cal deficit.
Then again that may not be a reasonable deficit, unless over 15 lbs to lose generally.

ETA:
Found a place I had mathed it out years ago. This is for the 1.25 Sedentary activity factor.
Sedentary is base activity that is built on, which already includes weekly - 45 hr work sitting, 56 hr sleeping, 60 hr sitting/standing, 7 hr slow walking

Slow means under 2mph.
105 hr sitting basically awake, burns slightly higher rate than the 56 hr sleeping BMR rate.
But standing actually burns more than sitting of course by small amount.

Taken to daily level, it really isn't much anyway.

Thank you for this. I am going to try to remember to write up a disability specific recommendation for this. Because yes, it might not be that much on a daily basis.
But for other people like myself, it might be a missed factor if they set their activity to sedentary when, due to disability, they’re actually less active than that.

kshama2001

MargaretYakoda wrote: »

kshama2001 wrote: »

MargaretYakoda wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

You can enter it as walking, if you know the time/distance.
Don't forget that a certain amount of activity (steps) is already included in your activity level, even sedentary includes probably the equivalent of around 3000 steps, so you don't want to add all of your steps as exercise or you'll be double-counting.

Is there any way to check if that sedentary = 3000 steps is true? Because that could be a factor for some disabled people (myself included) who are trying to lose weight.

I have kept my calories intentionally low because I suspected it might be the case. But I’d like to be sure. At my height and current weight that’s about 150 calories.

I think you should just use your data. If, over at least a month, you eat back all your steps and lose slower than expected, try not eating back 2,000 or so of them and see what happens after another month.

Or, as you are currently keeping your calories low - are you losing a little faster than expected? In that case, do eat back more steps.

When I think of "sedentary" I think of my partner's now deceased mother. She certainly got no where near 3,000 steps per day, so it is hard for me to think of that as the threshold for sedentary.

Apple Fitness says I have 3812 steps so far today. But that includes last night’s (after midnight) recumbent elliptical session.

My actual activity has been a few times to the bathroom, then back to my seat. Like almost every other day. Because that’s what I am able to do. Even showering is an “only sometimes, if I have the spoons” activity for me. If I do two loads of laundry in one day, that’s some big effort.

Most of the month I have lots of spoons but for two or three days a month I can't manage laundry, mostly because of the stairs. Come to think about it, I don't generally shower then either.