What is the best way to track walking

Motownmadmann2023

I have noticed that there are like 20 different version of walking. I'm new to tracking my walking and due to some heart issues I cannot walk long distances. I am having a PFT soon and need to do 6 minute walk and been able to do that in the apartment and want to track that on this site along with any walking I do outside when its nice. its not a long distance maybe 200-450 steps. I don't see where you can track steps just walking.
please help to be successful in my mind I need to track this thanks for any info in advance

mtaratoot

Motownmadmann2023 wrote: »

I have noticed that there are like 20 different version of walking. I'm new to tracking my walking and due to some heart issues I cannot walk long distances. I am having a PFT soon and need to do 6 minute walk and been able to do that in the apartment and want to track that on this site along with any walking I do outside when its nice. its not a long distance maybe 200-450 steps. I don't see where you can track steps just walking.
please help to be successful in my mind I need to track this thanks for any info in advance

How do you track your steps?

Do you have a watch?

There are several options. The easiest requires some kind of tracking device linked to MFP. It can track steps and either make assumptions about your stride length or allow you to customize that. You also must make sure it knows your weight, like by entering it on MFP and letting it sync. It will calculate calories from your STEPS and send them to MFP, but it won't show up as a "walk" unless you turn on the feature to tell it you are "taking a walk." Then, if it's like mine, it won't double-count your calories because even though it tracks your steps while on a walk, it knows exactly how far you are going.

For indoor walks, that's a bit of a tough one unless you count steps. You will have to convert that to either distance or time. To just enter it in MFP you can tell it how many minutes and what time you start. If you're walking indoors and no more than a few hundred steps at a time, you will likely opt for the slowest setting - 2.0 miles per hour slow pace.

To find out your stride length (to find out how many steps per mile) you can do a few things. The more steps you include the better. Set out a "course" with minimum of 50 feet and ideally 100 feet or more. Measure this carefully. Start with your toe at the zero on your course, then take a few steps backwards. Begin a normal pace walk, and start counting steps when one foot crosses the zero mark and stop counting when you reach the end. You can do this several times to get an average. Then do the math - 5280 feet per mile.

I used my tracking device for an experiment a while back. I had an estimate of my steps per mile. I would write down my step count immediately before taking a walk, then again when I got done. The GPS on my device could tell me very accurately both how far I had gone and how many steps. I got a running average (bad pun) and realized I was actually very close from using the stride length estimate described above. Then, for grins, I also did it while hiking. I take a lot more steps per mile when hiking on a trail, especially if there's elevation change. I developed two "steps per mile" conversions, but eventually just went back to my original estimate in part because it's a palindrome and was an album by the band Rush back in the day.

cmriverside

You can either set up a "Track Additional Measurements" in the "Check In" section, and just use number of steps, here: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/measurements/change

OR

You can convert your steps to miles and time the exercise, then use MPH along with the time in the "Exercise" portion under "Cardiovascular" here:
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/diary

I think generally a mile is 2000-ish steps, there are detailed calculators to convert steps to miles online if you Google it.

SafariGalNYC

There is an app called “map my walk”.. you can connect it to MFP and it auto logs the steps.

yirara

Map My Walk I think sends gross calories to MFP, and hence you might be double dipping. But just for the distance it's probably fine.