Eating Back Step Calories

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nelja
nelja Posts: 282 Member
edited November 2017 in Food and Nutrition
Good morning

I have set my activity level to be Sedentary with no exercises. Then I walk 10 000 steps per day. Do I eat back some of the calories or not? If I do, what percentage do I eat back? On this moment sometimes I eat back maximum about 50 of the calories earned. Is it too much or too little?

Thanks in advance
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Replies

  • clin7802
    clin7802 Posts: 1 Member
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  • nelja
    nelja Posts: 282 Member
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    I have a vivosmart hr which measure my steps daily and I upload it to MFP. I want to loose some weight. And I measure and log my food and drinks.
    heybales wrote: »
    So you aren't truly sedentary then.

    But if distance and time is correct - that is very accurate calories in the scheme of things - do it.

  • nelja
    nelja Posts: 282 Member
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    Thank you will have a look at it
    clin7802 wrote: »

  • nelja
    nelja Posts: 282 Member
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    I was just confused if I should eat back steps because I have found articles on the internet which says steps below 8000 must not be eaten back.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    nelja wrote: »
    I was just confused if I should eat back steps because I have found articles on the internet which says steps below 8000 must not be eaten back.

    Sedentary only accounts for about 3000-5000 steps. As @heybales said, it’s the total calorie burn you receive from your tracker that is what you’re eating back because you burned more calories than MFP expected.
  • nelja
    nelja Posts: 282 Member
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    So I can basically eat back half of the calories, or all above 5000 steps. The first 5000 is already been calculated for in the sedentary activity level. Now at least I have a estimate to work with

    Thank you
    malibu927 wrote: »
    nelja wrote: »
    I was just confused if I should eat back steps because I have found articles on the internet which says steps below 8000 must not be eaten back.

    Sedentary only accounts for about 3000-5000 steps. As @heybales said, it’s the total calorie burn you receive from your tracker that is what you’re eating back because you burned more calories than MFP expected.

  • ladyhusker39
    ladyhusker39 Posts: 1,406 Member
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    If your tracker is connected to MFP it should be making adjustments for you. Since you're talking about steps I'm betting is very accurate. (Trackers can be less accurate for other non-step activity.) You'd be ok to eat what it tells you to. When you set up your goals in MFP if you chose to lose weight, the calorie deficit is already built in.
  • JillianRumrill
    JillianRumrill Posts: 335 Member
    edited November 2017
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    Personally I have my daily goal as 1200 cals and I try to stay within that. My fitness tracker automatically deducts calories from walking, so if I'm very hungry, I eat an extra 300 cals. One of the tips I've heard is overestimate calories consumed and underestimate calories burned.
    I try not to go too far beyond that b/c I could easily slip into a binge.
  • Lola_Mercury
    Lola_Mercury Posts: 25 Member
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    I would eat most of it back. If you try to stick to 1200 calories, youll just starve yourself unecessarily and give up after a few months.
  • NewMeSM75
    NewMeSM75 Posts: 971 Member
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    Depends on how I'm feeling. If I feel satisfied, I won't eat the calories back. If I feel as if I need more, I will eat them back. Sometimes I might eat half of them back. Just depends.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    Steph38878 wrote: »
    Depends on how I'm feeling. If I feel satisfied, I won't eat the calories back. If I feel as if I need more, I will eat them back. Sometimes I might eat half of them back. Just depends.

    Same here. Sometimes i eat back none, some or all of them. It all depends how hungry i am on the day.

  • nelja
    nelja Posts: 282 Member
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    That is also what I do, I maybe eat about 50-75 back. Then I am full. SOmetimes even no eating back.
    Steph38878 wrote: »
    Depends on how I'm feeling. If I feel satisfied, I won't eat the calories back. If I feel as if I need more, I will eat them back. Sometimes I might eat half of them back. Just depends.

    Same here. Sometimes i eat back none, some or all of them. It all depends how hungry i am on the day.

  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    Good point about specifying what ones exercise is when talking about eating back the calories, heybales.

    My only exercise is walking, i probably max out at 3.5mph, so definitely not intense or physically draining/demanding . My goal is 13k steps a day.
    If i was doing hardcore training I'm sure I'd be needing to eat every one of those exercise calories back.
  • Halloweenmom31
    Halloweenmom31 Posts: 56 Member
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    I’m confused... I eat the calories I get from my steps. If I don’t eat them I will loose weight quicker?? My weight loss has been slow.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    Maybe.

    If weight loss is slow because you have little left to lose and purposely are making it slow - then good.
    If it's slow because body is stressed out and forced slowness on you - that's not good.

    However you create a deficit, traditional eat less and move more, or just eat less, or perhaps just move more - you have control over the deficit amount.

    And sadly most have no idea what is healthy, adhereable, reasonable, ect - hence the reason majority of those who reach a goal weight (some don't of course) - fail to maintain it.

    The time spent losing was not spent on making a new life style sustainable - so it failed during maintenance at some point.
  • MelanieCN77
    MelanieCN77 Posts: 4,047 Member
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    I consider myself base sedentary even though I usually hit 10k steps a day - a good amount of those would be during workouts, and wandering around the gym during my time there. As I am logging the actual workouts like a run or strength training, I don't count the steps also as that would be double dipping. Any up and down stairs or out to the yard to see my animals or wandering a supermarket or whatever I feel like I've always done anyway so I just consider that to be within my baseline and not meaningful in terms of edible extras.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    I consider myself base sedentary even though I usually hit 10k steps a day - a good amount of those would be during workouts, and wandering around the gym during my time there. As I am logging the actual workouts like a run or strength training, I don't count the steps also as that would be double dipping. Any up and down stairs or out to the yard to see my animals or wandering a supermarket or whatever I feel like I've always done anyway so I just consider that to be within my baseline and not meaningful in terms of edible extras.

    Well - that's why logging a workout (especially if you have more accurate calorie burn) in an activity tracker syncing situation is different.

    You are replacing the calories the tracker came up with. So no double dipping. Only if you totally got the time wrong (5am instead of 5pm) would their be double-dipping.

    That logging can be done on the tracker site or MFP if you have your own calories. For Fitbit, it's database is used smarter than MFP's and many activities have better options of intensity, so should log there.

    Now strength training, if it was long and frequent (3 x weekly @ 20 min doesn't matter in scheme of calories) then HR-based calorie burn would be inflated - database entry is best.
    Then again in that case, it was never step based calories showing up on MFP anyway.

    Now logging a run, where most trackers are already going to have a good estimate - really no need (unless doing intervals and again inflated HR-based calorie burn) to log it separately - you really aren't making a difference.

    Unless you mean you just aren't syncing the tracker with MFP anyway - and don't consider increased daily activity meaningful enough to count, I suppose hoping you guessed the activity level correctly from 4 options.

    Because increased daily activity doesn't show up as increased calories on MFP when syncing, unless you've really done more burn than the activity level was expecting.