Pedometers... are they chesting on MFP?

sdbart

Now I am wondering... MFP calculates your daily burn for your "average" energy level. So wouldn't that take into account your walking during the day? So would using a pedometer to count your steps and then adding the calories burned from the pedometer be actually "cheating"? What's your guys thoughts on using the pedometer as an exercise?

Okapi42

I use one, but if it comes up with less than 2 1/2 km (totally arbitrary own rule) I don't log it. But on a normal workday 10-15km is no rarity for me, so I feel that's certainly worthy of adding.

oohmercyme

Oh- CHEATING!?! I couldn't for the life of me understand what chesting was.

Pedometers are great for tracking and increasing your exercise!

714rah714

It's probably chesting, but then again, who am I to judge

kchang77

I use a fitbit pedometer and it's been awesome. It syncs with MFP and has been an extremely useful tool for me.

avasano

No, it helps to keep you moving. I think it is wonderful to know how active you really are throughout the day. I use a Fitbit One and I love it.

jonchew

Honestly... I think you're going to have to learn empirically how your own body responds to whatever you eat, and whatever exercise you choose. No generic calculator is going to be a perfect fit for everyone. I've found the MFP calculator pretty close to the results that I get with my HRM... but that's me.

Pedometers give you a consistent and accurate quantity of the distance travelled (# of steps taken), a means of comparing day-to-day, I think you'll need to extrapolate how your body reacts to those day-to-day comparisons & in time learn how your body reacts to exercise & calories.

To farther confuse the issue - 10,000 steps walked at 3MPH will burn a different amount of calories as 10,000 of running - but it's still the same number of steps - just different intensity.

ZyheeMoongazer

It all depends on how you entered your activity level. If you selected sedentary then you would want to enter all your walking etc. But if you selected lightly active (or higher) due to your normal activity of walking a lot or your daily exercise, then you wouldn't want to enter your activities.

I personally have my activity set to sedentary and manually add my workouts, etc. I don't like counting my activities in my TDEE because if I get lazy and don't do them then I end up eating more then I should. Thus I only credit myself when I ACTUALLY do the work.

disasterman

I use whatever tools I can to track my food and exercise closely enough so that the results I want to acheive are fairly predictable. In this way there is no cheating, however it is possible for me to not get the results I'm working for which would be a shame.

So if your pedometer helps you, it's a good thing. If it tricks you into thinking you're burning more calories from exercise than you really are, it's not a good thing.

Edited to say: so the people who are talking about how you set your activity level and whether the pedometer is measuring the "beyond normal" walking or not are giving great advice.

eyeshuh

It depends what you set your MFP activity level to. If you set it to Sedentary, then you would want to log any walking that is more than around 5000 steps I think. If you set MFP to your activity level that includes walking, then you wouldn't log it. You would just want to make sure that you get that amount of movement in every day.

That is how the fancy pedometer integration like Striiv and FitBit work, except that they do it automagically for you whereas if you have a regular pedometer you could do it manually.

kelcro40

It is not cheating to me, because I don't use a pedometer to track my normal daily steps. I only use and log it as exercise when it goes beyond normal daily routines. For instance, I never walked before just to walk for health, so now when I am out there doing extra walking to burn calories, I log it.

DrMAvDPhD

If you set your calories at sedentary but then walk enough to qualify as lightly active or more, you are creating an untracked calorie deficit. Acknowledging that isn't cheating it's being accurate.

postrockandcats

I do wear my Fitbit near my chest :P

No, they aren't cheating, they are an enhancement of what MFP offers!

ngressman

Now I am wondering... MFP calculates your daily burn for your "average" energy level. So wouldn't that take into account your walking during the day? So would using a pedometer to count your steps and then adding the calories burned from the pedometer be actually "cheating"? What's your guys thoughts on using the pedometer as an exercise?

The average person walks 3,000 steps a day. If I were you I would subtract those steps for your daily total. Walking is a great exercise, and I don't think it's cheating to count your walking throughout the day. I think it is up to you. If you are eating those calories back, and you start to gain weight then it isn't working. We are all trying to figure this out. If it works for you, I say go for it!

sdbart

It all depends on how you entered your activity level. If you selected sedentary then you would want to enter all your walking etc. But if you selected lightly active (or higher) due to your normal activity of walking a lot or your daily exercise, then you wouldn't want to enter your activities.

I personally have my activity set to sedentary and manually add my workouts, etc. I don't like counting my activities in my TDEE because if I get lazy and don't do them then I end up eating more then I should. Thus I only credit myself when I ACTUALLY do the work.

Thank you for this idea. IMO, you are right... we should be responsible for our energy burn. And yes, there sre some days when I am being a total lazy bum and I want MFP to be as accurate as possible. Thanks for the idea of setting my activity level to sedentary.