Is 10K steps a day still sedentary?

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karenrich77
karenrich77 Posts: 292 Member
edited November 2014 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all,

I started my journey at 370 pounds in Feb, so far now weighing in at 292 :) I do 10,000 steps each morning before I do anything else, so it is a commitment thing for me, it equates to 90 mins walking for me 7 days a week. I then go about my daily business and can add between another 3000-6000 for the rest of my day.

The last week or two since I lowered my calories again to 1320 (I am set to lose 2 pounds a week just for another month or two) I am hungry all the time.

I don't log my walks, I just let my vivofit do it's adjustment. Longwinded question I know but should I now be setting my activity level to lightly active and let the vivofit give me an adjustment if necessary?

Thanks for the input folks, in advance :)

K
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Replies

  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
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    No, it's not still sedentary.

    from this link: http://walking.about.com/cs/measure/a/locke122004.htm

    Classification of pedometer-determined physical activity in healthy adults:
    1) Under 5000 steps/day may be used as a "sedentary lifestyle index"
    2) 5,000-7,499 steps/day is typical of daily activity excluding sports/exercise and might be considered "low active." The average American walks 5900 to 6900 steps per day, so the majority are "low active."
    3) 7,500-9,999 steps/day likely includes some exercise or walking (and/or a job that requires more walking) and might be considered "somewhat active."
    4) 10,000 steps/day indicates the point that should be used to classify individuals as "active".

    5) 12,500+ steps/day Individuals who take more than 12,500 steps/day are likely to be classified as "highly active".
  • karenrich77
    karenrich77 Posts: 292 Member
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    Phrick wrote: »
    No, it's not still sedentary.

    from this link: http://walking.about.com/cs/measure/a/locke122004.htm

    Classification of pedometer-determined physical activity in healthy adults:
    1) Under 5000 steps/day may be used as a "sedentary lifestyle index"
    2) 5,000-7,499 steps/day is typical of daily activity excluding sports/exercise and might be considered "low active." The average American walks 5900 to 6900 steps per day, so the majority are "low active."
    3) 7,500-9,999 steps/day likely includes some exercise or walking (and/or a job that requires more walking) and might be considered "somewhat active."
    4) 10,000 steps/day indicates the point that should be used to classify individuals as "active".

    5) 12,500+ steps/day Individuals who take more than 12,500 steps/day are likely to be classified as "highly active".

    10,000 + between 3000 and 6000 makes me, according to this active! Thanks for the info though. I am wrong having myself as sedentary
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    Is vivofit like fitbit and automatically adjusts MFP?

    If so leave it as sedentary to adjust
  • karenrich77
    karenrich77 Posts: 292 Member
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    rabbitjb wrote: »
    Is vivofit like fitbit and automatically adjusts MFP?

    If so leave it as sedentary to adjust

    Problem is I don't know how accurate it is, so I don't eat the calories back, then I end up hungry ALL the time.... stuck between hungry and a hard place, so hungry it is :/
  • 47Jacqueline
    47Jacqueline Posts: 6,993 Member
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    You would be highly active, but don't log those steps as workouts.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    edited November 2014
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    Eat the calories back if you're following MFP (at least 75%) of them - MFP gives you a defecit without activity

    Why wouldn't you? You earned them, you're fuelling your body to move more
  • karenrich77
    karenrich77 Posts: 292 Member
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    rabbitjb wrote: »
    Eat the calories back if you're following MFP (at least 75%) of them - MFP gives you a defecit without activity

    Why wouldn't you? You earned them, you're fuelling your body to move more

    I am concerned that the vivofit may not be totally accurate, so I don't eat the calories back in case it is incorrect. I am concious of not overeating, hence the losing 78 pounds thing lol
  • kennie2
    kennie2 Posts: 1,171 Member
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    i just follow the calorie adjustments through my fitbit rather than mfp as i find it that it makes more sense but log my food here as the fitbit food db is awful
  • infomancer
    infomancer Posts: 16 Member
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    I aim for at least 10,000 steps a day with my Fitbit and have chosen to set myself to 'Lightly active' but allowing Fitbit to make negative adjustments as necessary*. I don't have concerns about Fitbit's accuracy, but I do find that I can better plan my day this way. But that's just me: your mileage may vary :smile:

    (*At 'Lightly active', Fitbit hasn't needed to subtract calories from my daily total yet, but this summer, when I had a higher step goal and a higher activity level, it did so occasionally and it worked well for me.)
  • Docbanana2002
    Docbanana2002 Posts: 357 Member
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    Wow you are eating way too few calories for your size and activity level. When I switched to Fitbit I was shocked about how many calories it was giving me....but I decided to eat them anyway as an experiment. If it slowed me down a few weeks because my experiment failed, so be it. I'm not in a emergency here. At least I would know. The first few weeks I was nervous since my weight went up a bit from my increased activity and food (water weight), but on week 3 I dropped like a rock and my fitbit/MFP projected and actual weight loss has been fairly well in sync since.

    My advice would be to not starve yourself out of uncertainty about whether the tracker is right....test it. You paid good money for it and to not use the data it is giving you is a waste. Also you have a long journey ahead (with lots of room for mistakes at this point because you are running larger deficits), so do it right...with good data and a sustainable number of calories. This isn't a sprint, it is a lifestyle change, and you might have some failed experiments along the way as you learn what works for your body. That's okay, just learn from it and adjust and keep moving forward.

    Here's how I test mine, by the way. On the mobile app, I set my goal to "maintain" and then look at the weekly view that tells how many calories under maintenance I was for the week. Add the weekly totals up for as many weeks as you were syncing the data, divide the calories by 3500. The more weeks worth of data the better since the short term fluctuations tend to wash out that way. That tells you how many pounds you should have lost, IF your activity and food tracking are perfect and the formula used to calculate your BMR is correct. Then add up how many pounds you actually lost over that same time period and compare. If they match, then great....your tracking is accurate. When I do this I usually end up with a slightly bigger loss than MFP projected (by a fraction of a pound) so I just trust my logging and eat back everything. The slight error is in a direction that gives me a little buffer.

    If numbers don't match, I would first make sure the food logging is correct and the error isn't there...weigh and measure everything since your ability to visually judge portions might be off. Mine was WAY off when I started my own journey. If it still isn't in sync, I'd probably stop eating back calories by the average amount that it was off. Or just set my goal lower to account for the error and eat back everything.
  • nosebag1212
    nosebag1212 Posts: 621 Member
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    no way is that sedentary it's much more, when I hit 10,000 steps my expenditure is way above the sedentary 1.2x multiplyer for tdee
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited November 2014
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    rabbitjb wrote: »
    Is vivofit like fitbit and automatically adjusts MFP?

    If so leave it as sedentary to adjust

    Problem is I don't know how accurate it is, so I don't eat the calories back, then I end up hungry ALL the time.... stuck between hungry and a hard place, so hungry it is :/

    I found Fitbit to be really accurate, so I recommend trying it. Leave a bit of a cushion if you want and compare your results as you go.

    Congrats on your success so far!
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
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    Wow you are eating way too few calories for your size and activity level. When I switched to Fitbit I was shocked about how many calories it was giving me....but I decided to eat them anyway as an experiment. If it slowed me down a few weeks because my experiment failed, so be it. I'm not in a emergency here. At least I would know. The first few weeks I was nervous since my weight went up a bit from my increased activity and food (water weight), but on week 3 I dropped like a rock and my fitbit/MFP projected and actual weight loss has been fairly well in sync since.

    My advice would be to not starve yourself out of uncertainty about whether the tracker is right....test it. You paid good money for it and to not use the data it is giving you is a waste. Also you have a long journey ahead (with lots of room for mistakes at this point because you are running larger deficits), so do it right...with good data and a sustainable number of calories. This isn't a sprint, it is a lifestyle change, and you might have some failed experiments along the way as you learn what works for your body. That's okay, just learn from it and adjust and keep moving forward.

    Here's how I test mine, by the way. On the mobile app, I set my goal to "maintain" and then look at the weekly view that tells how many calories under maintenance I was for the week. Add the weekly totals up for as many weeks as you were syncing the data, divide the calories by 3500. The more weeks worth of data the better since the short term fluctuations tend to wash out that way. That tells you how many pounds you should have lost, IF your activity and food tracking are perfect and the formula used to calculate your BMR is correct. Then add up how many pounds you actually lost over that same time period and compare. If they match, then great....your tracking is accurate. When I do this I usually end up with a slightly bigger loss than MFP projected (by a fraction of a pound) so I just trust my logging and eat back everything. The slight error is in a direction that gives me a little buffer.

    If numbers don't match, I would first make sure the food logging is correct and the error isn't there...weigh and measure everything since your ability to visually judge portions might be off. Mine was WAY off when I started my own journey. If it still isn't in sync, I'd probably stop eating back calories by the average amount that it was off. Or just set my goal lower to account for the error and eat back everything.

    This post is so full of win. I love the bolded part especially.
  • DeWoSa
    DeWoSa Posts: 496 Member
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    You weigh more than me and are much more active than I am and I eat between 1450 and 1650 a day and have been losing a pound or more a week.

    I'd suggest kicking your calories up by 200 to give yourself another meal, because hungry = suck.

    And I second the congratulations on your success!
  • Flookbird
    Flookbird Posts: 81 Member
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    I have a fitbit and have myself set as sedentary on here. I usually do 12k+ steps a day and fitbit gives me back usually around 700 cals a day. I am set to lose 1lb a week. I don't eat back the calories MFP gives me for swimming but I do usually eat back my fitbit calories and I am losing just over 1lb a week. This suggests fitbit is really accurate for me!
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
    edited November 2014
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    Is vivofit like fitbit and automatically adjusts MFP?

    If so leave it as sedentary to adjust

    Problem is I don't know how accurate it is, so I don't eat the calories back, then I end up hungry ALL the time.... stuck between hungry and a hard place, so hungry it is :/

    I found Fitbit to be really accurate, so I recommend trying it. Leave a bit of a cushion if you want and compare your results as you go.

    Congrats on your success so far!

    THIS.
    Give yourself a SMALL cushion if it makes you feel better, but don't under eat. You've got some wiggle room at this point. it would be better to know how MUCH you can eat, rather than guess at stuff.
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,626 Member
    edited November 2014
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    Okay, I'm all for gadgets for gadget lovers, but you have to use your brain, too.

    If you're hungry all the time, you need to eat a little more. I don't care what the apps and gadgets say. What the gadgets say does not matter. If it's REAL hunger and it's constant, you need to eat.

    I'm not sure if it would make a ton of difference classifying your self as active and not logging the exercise or classifying yourself as sedentary and logging the exercise. Try it both ways, see which you like best.

    1300 calories is really low for someone your size. If you must eat very little to lose, you must. I get that. Me, too. But if you can eat more and still lose, do that!

    If that all sounds snippy, as it might when I read it, please don't take it the snippy way. I'm not trying to be snippy. You are smarter than your gadgets. That's my point, :)

    And congratulations on your fantastic progress so far! Well done. :)

  • Aviva92
    Aviva92 Posts: 2,333 Member
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    rabbitjb wrote: »
    Eat the calories back if you're following MFP (at least 75%) of them - MFP gives you a defecit without activity

    Why wouldn't you? You earned them, you're fuelling your body to move more

    I am concerned that the vivofit may not be totally accurate, so I don't eat the calories back in case it is incorrect. I am concious of not overeating, hence the losing 78 pounds thing lol

    i'm guessing that setting yourself as active instead of sedentary or just logging the walking and keeping it as sedentary aren't any more or less accurate than each other. I usually walk at least 10,000 steps a day and had it set to sedentary, but logged my walking. I usually didn't eat back all the calories because I assumed it wasn't completely accurate. Lost a lot of weight that way, so it might have been more accurate than I thought.
  • Lasmartchika
    Lasmartchika Posts: 3,440 Member
    edited November 2014
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    Phrick wrote: »
    No, it's not still sedentary.

    from this link: http://walking.about.com/cs/measure/a/locke122004.htm

    Classification of pedometer-determined physical activity in healthy adults:
    1) Under 5000 steps/day may be used as a "sedentary lifestyle index"
    2) 5,000-7,499 steps/day is typical of daily activity excluding sports/exercise and might be considered "low active." The average American walks 5900 to 6900 steps per day, so the majority are "low active."
    3) 7,500-9,999 steps/day likely includes some exercise or walking (and/or a job that requires more walking) and might be considered "somewhat active."
    4) 10,000 steps/day indicates the point that should be used to classify individuals as "active".

    5) 12,500+ steps/day Individuals who take more than 12,500 steps/day are likely to be classified as "highly active".

    This seems about right... I saw on some other post somebody told the OP 10,000 steps was sedentary and should do 15,000 to be somewhat active. That advice just didn't seem right at all. Thanks for this info. :)
  • NextPage
    NextPage Posts: 609 Member
    edited November 2014
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    I think the best bet is to factor in total steps and intensity. I have a fitbit and track steps as well as my workouts and I tend to eat back about half my calories burned when I earned my 10,000 steps through regular paced walking. However, if I did a work out with a lot of active minutes (spinning, ellipitical etc), I allow myself more calories. The fitbit site shows total steps and total active minutes. When both of these are high if I stick to 1200 calories I become "hangry" and weak.