I get off the train two stops before I normally do & walk home. Everyone thinks I'm loon haha! It's great for getting my steps up real high thou. :-) 22k yesterday & it's only my third day since getting it.

I just look for ways to move more in general. I walk around when I am talking on the phone, park farther away, things like that. A few work friends have fitbits also, and it's motivating to see where we are on the leaderboard!

Makes me know my non-exercise daily calorie burn better, so when corrected exercise is entered, I can keep the deficit at a reasonable level for the performance I want.

Actually at this time, deficit at the level to assist healing an injury. Though I'm pretty sure like building muscle in a deficit, I'll have to give up losing and get on with the healing.

But I don't use the app, and I don't care about steps or VAM or miles, I got my workouts, they are being done.

Exactly this.

Longer walks and more activity. I also find the sleep records interesting - now I know why I sometimes feel tired - just not enough quality sleep.

I have a hundred pros but a con is that it makes me not want to do resistance training b/c I don't get steps for it and I can't keep up with people on my leaderboard! The competition is ruthless!

Makes me realize how MANY steps 10k is! I walk to the grocery store now, it takes me 10 minutes to drive there and it's not even 5000!

And walking IS exercise. Or, my 41 pounds are imaginary.

It is AN exercise. And I wasn't stating it can't help you lose weight.

I only meant that it stops being as much of an exercise for equal time spent - because you eventually reach a max speed, and if you weigh less, you will burn less, no way around that fact unless you wear a weighted vest or only take hills going up and down now.
In fact, dropping 20 lbs, you can't increase the level walking pace enough to compensate for the lower calorie burn from moving around less mass. Unless you started at about 1 mph.

Here's another problem, cardio fitness. If you are moving less mass around, it's also easier on your body and cardio system.
If it's easier now weighing less, your cardio fitness will actually go down. Intensity is what matter to maintain that fitness level, not endurance of going longer.

It would be exactly the same as squatting 150 lbs. But then you lost 50 lbs.
If you are still squatting 150 lbs and it's just as hard for you - bad news - you lost muscle mass.
Because if you kept your muscle mass, you should now be able to squat 200 lbs with equal effort.

So also walking - if you got to point walking a certain route used to give an average HR of say 120.
But you lost 50 lbs and you do the same route now in same time, and the avgHR is still 120 - you lost cardio fitness. HR should have lowered with lost weight at the least. Now you can go faster and get higher HR, but that's not the same test.

All body improvements only come about because we overload the body to some extent, and it responds during the rest and recovery by becoming stronger. With either increased strength, more muscle (if diet allows), or increased fitness level (measured by VO2max), or more endurance (by storing more carbs). But the last one doesn't require any of the 3 prior ones to occur.

So yes walking is an exercise, and as weight loss continues it will become less and less of an exercise. It will still be a calorie burner, just not as much as it was.

I have a hundred pros but a con is that it makes me not want to do resistance training b/c I don't get steps for it and I can't keep up with people on my leaderboard! The competition is ruthless!

Very interesting. I used to be a runner and was always at the top of my leader board. I've shifted focus and no longer run, but do lift. I walk most days, trying to get my 10K steps, but don't always hit it. I'm somewhere in the middle of my leader board now...and I'm okay with that. My Fitbit and its stats are for me only. I use the TDEE info to figure out my intake.

Obsess over numbers.

QFT