BMR & Pedometer Step Calories?

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cazziecoo
cazziecoo Posts: 29 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi I have been going off MFP's calorie reccomendations to lose 1lb a week however it is not working that well for me, I think the reason for this is that some days/weeks I am a sedentary and others I am lightly active/ active as I have days off sat around and shifts at work on my feet for 8 hours other days.

I couldnt afford a fitbit but I bought a pedometer which also calculates calories burnt based on your data. Would it be a good idea to set my activity to sedentary every day and then manually add in the calories I burn during the day by my steps? Would that lead to a more accurate calorie goal day by day?

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  • DeniseB0711
    DeniseB0711 Posts: 294 Member
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    If you have a smart phone you either can download a pedometer app to your phone or use the pre-installed app (depends on the phone most new ones have it already installed)
    I use Accupedo on my older Android. The only con to a 3rd party app is the battery life of your phone is reduced.
    I use a pedometer/activity tracking app for the sole purpose of making sure I don't sit all day and get in at least 5000 steps of walking.

    Also, MFP, doesn't leave a lead way in calculating calories, there seems to be only a handful of "levels". I have been highly active and been told to net 1200 calories, and recently I redid my profile because I don't exercise as much and got 1370 calories. Not much of a difference in net calories.

    I made my profile based on what I do the majority of the time, which is walk around a retail store. Sometimes I walk up to 7miles while I am at work. The ONLY activity I log is actual exercise. The profile settings on here are pretty spot on if you are honest about your average activity so you wouldn't need to put all of your regular activity in manually.

  • jim180155
    jim180155 Posts: 769 Member
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    cazziecoo wrote: »

    I couldnt afford a fitbit but I bought a pedometer which also calculates calories burnt based on your data. Would it be a good idea to set my activity to sedentary every day and then manually add in the calories I burn during the day by my steps? Would that lead to a more accurate calorie goal day by day?


    Yes, that's exactly how you should approach it. You'll not only get a more accurate daily calorie allocation, but if you're like me, you'll also find it very motivating when you know that more steps = more food you get to eat (or more deficit).
  • leggup
    leggup Posts: 2,942 Member
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    You should just set your app to sedentary. If you are on your feet all day from time to time, you will help cover any errors you have in logging. It will only give you an extra 100 calories or so if you're just standing around. If you have no error in your diary, then logging as sedentary and having a few active (non-exercise) days would just cause you to lose 1.1 or 1.2 lbs per week instead of 1.

    Pedometers are unnecessary. They are horribly inaccurate and don't give you that many more calories anyway.
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
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    Most of your daily activity is accounted for in the sedentary setting. MFP doesn't use your BMR as the number from which your deficit gets set ... it calculates your daily caloric level based on your activity before exercise (sedentary = BMR x 1.2) so if you start adding calories from normal walking that is part of normal life you end up double counting ... possibly triple if the number you add from your pedometer is gross rather than net exercise calories.
  • cazziecoo
    cazziecoo Posts: 29 Member
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    so would you think it would be better to set my goal as my BMR - 20% + my pedometer activity to get a more accurate goal Brian?
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
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    BMR is not the set point. Period. MFP provided a caloric goal based of your non exercise activity level . Eat to it.

    Be honest with yourself. How many of the steps your pedometer records are in excess of your normal daily activity? Even at sedentary the calories for things like walking to/from the bathroom, normal work related stuff, etc are accounted for. If you're going for walks as exercise, count only those ... and that is basic math of pounds * miles * .3 for approximate net calories expended.

    http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/how-many-calories-are-you-really-burning?page=single
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    Your BMR plus the calories burned in steps plus some other stuff should equal your TDEE. However, when you set MFP to sedentary, it is setting your goal to BMR plus that other stuff, plus some of your steps to get your TDEE. So, don't include all of your steps, but include those beyond normal steps for a sedentary lifestyle as exercise calories.
  • jim180155
    jim180155 Posts: 769 Member
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    brianpperkins wrote: »
    Most of your daily activity is accounted for in the sedentary setting. MFP doesn't use your BMR as the number from which your deficit gets set ... it calculates your daily caloric level based on your activity before exercise (sedentary = BMR x 1.2) so if you start adding calories from normal walking that is part of normal life you end up double counting ... possibly triple if the number you add from your pedometer is gross rather than net exercise calories.

    That's a good point. MFP's sedentary setting does not mean totally sedentary, such as spending all day in bed or on the sofa. I use a Fitbit and have negative calories enabled which means that if I don't move enough, calories are deducted from my daily allotment. The break even point is somewhere around 5,000 steps or a little over 2 miles.

    OP, if your pedometer also shows distance, I'd only count the total distance over 2 miles. You can find online calculators that will account for your weight, height and walking speed, but you'll probably find yourself in the vicinity of 100 calories per mile walked.
  • cazziecoo
    cazziecoo Posts: 29 Member
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    Ok that does make sense! Like Jim said I wanted the pedometer to encourage me to move more to gain more food (calories). I have just come home from uni for the day and the pedometer is saying I have burnt 239.3 calories walking 4.645 km which on a normal day off I wouldn't have burnt a single one of those calories so I am going to count those as extra exercise calories, I will do the same with shifts at work and will keep my activity as sedentary and only eat the sedentary calorie MFP gives me on lazy days/ my days off where I don't do anything. make sense?
  • jim180155
    jim180155 Posts: 769 Member
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    cazziecoo wrote: »
    Ok that does make sense! Like Jim said I wanted the pedometer to encourage me to move more to gain more food (calories). I have just come home from uni for the day and the pedometer is saying I have burnt 239.3 calories walking 4.645 km which on a normal day off I wouldn't have burnt a single one of those calories so I am going to count those as extra exercise calories, I will do the same with shifts at work and will keep my activity as sedentary and only eat the sedentary calorie MFP gives me on lazy days/ my days off where I don't do anything. make sense?

    Yes. That's a good starting point. From there, provided that you're reasonably good at tracking your calories, just keep an eye on things. You may want to add or subtract a couple hundred daily calories depending on the long term difference between what MFP is telling you and what your scale is telling you. In my case I try to keep a couple hundred calories below goal to hit my projected weight loss. Most days. Other days I eat all the calories. And then other days I eat all my calories and some of somebody else's.

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