Calorie adjustment from steps - what is sedentary?

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loveisapineapple
loveisapineapple Posts: 38 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm very sedentary, I walk about 3000 - 8000 steps a day excluding any purposeful fitness. My fitness watch (Nokia Steel) synchs to MFP and always subtracts calories, as I have negative calorie adjustment enabled. I'm not worried about this as far as calories are concerned because I use TDEE and just aim for 1750 a day, but my question is, what does MFP consider sedentary?
I thought when I do 8000 steps then that would be more than totally sedentary, but it still subtracts calories.
The way I thought it would work is that MFP calculates an estimate based on my selection of 'sedentary', and then the fitness watch would update that as it should theoretically be more accurate. But I predict I would need to walk around 10000 steps before I hit the 'sedentary' target which seems odd.

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  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,660 Member
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    It does. Doesn't it. Very few definitions of sedentary extend as far as 5000 steps a day. The usual definition tops at around 3500.

    I would double check that all settings and setups are accurate. Time zones. Things like that.

    Then again... my Fitbit during the past three years has been "off" by less than 4% of my TDEE when considered in multi month intervals.... Google Fit? An error of well over 20%. So a big name does not always translate to correct results.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
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    Less than 5000 steps is considered sedentary. Have you checked to make sure you are set here to sedentary because it sounds like you might not be.
  • aeloine
    aeloine Posts: 2,163 Member
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    I hit a minimum of 5,500/day and I've been able to bump myself up to lightly active. I think that you're not actually set to sedentary on MFP. Check your set up again.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    Check your settings
  • loveisapineapple
    loveisapineapple Posts: 38 Member
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    Thanks for the responses, I've checked my settings and it's definitely set to 'sedentary', so I thought I'd change it to 'lightly active'. Theoretically that would mean the negative adjustment would be even greater - so I will have a good comparison.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited February 2018
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    Yes it should be bigger.

    Forget steps since that isn't actually what MFP is doing math with.

    Steps results in distance, distance and mass and time results in calories.

    What is the distance those steps results in?

    Are your body stats correct on Fitbit, since that matters?

    Ever tested a walk of a known distance at your average daily pace to see if the Fitbit agreed on distance?

    Increasing activity level on MFP won't test anything that matters. It'll be GIGO no matter what level is picked.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    loveisapineapple wrote: »
    Thanks for the responses, I've checked my settings and it's definitely set to 'sedentary', so I thought I'd change it to 'lightly active'. Theoretically that would mean the negative adjustment would be even greater - so I will have a good comparison.

    What @heybales says...........

    Is there an adjustment for stride length on your device? Short people have shorter strides.
  • Kellryn
    Kellryn Posts: 139 Member
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    My fitbit calorie adjustment is quite accurate and has been for several years. I'm set to sedentary and I need to hit around 8200 steps to not get a negative adjustment.
    Time of activity matters to the adjustment for me. When I'm at work (graveyard shift) I need more steps then on my days off where I'm awake during the day. Not sure why this is, but its always been this way.
  • daniip_la
    daniip_la Posts: 678 Member
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    My fitbit starts adding calories when I break the 2500 step barrier, that’s the sedentary line on mine.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    Only because I see the same terminology used frequently that makes it appear people think that Fitbit is doing the changes to MFP.

    Fitbit is merely reporting the total calorie burn for the day - MFP does the math and makes the addition/subtraction for adjustments.

    You could require 10K grocery store shuffle steps around the house to get enough distance to cause enough calorie burn to go over 1.25 x BMR.
    You could require 2K serious office steps to hit that distance to go over.

    You could also require 4K steps to increase calories enough, discover the distance is wrong, correct it, and now only need 3500 steps to increase calories enough.

    If you know that BMR x 1.25 calorie burn MFP estimates for Sedentary, you merely have to look at your device total calorie burn to know you'll get an adjustment. Ok, some quick mental math for how far into the day and how that compares is required, but it's easy to get a few numbers and times down to know an adjustment will be coming.

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