Question..do I "eat" apple watch step extra calories or not?

charlierob02
charlierob02 Posts: 2 Member
in Motivation and Support
Ive just started 2 weeks ago and do 10,000 steps every day which is logged to the app by my apple watch. This generates around 300 extra cals per day. Question is do I need to make sure I use up these or not? Also not sure if my cals are correct as lost 2.5 pounds week one, nothing at all this week! (On 2000 cals a day, 6ft 2, 298ibs)...please any advice on both these would be appreciated.

Replies

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    edited February 2021
    Without knowing if your watch is synced or not or whether you intend to use either your watch or MyFitnessPal to set your calorie goal as a general point your daily activity (of which your high step count is a big part) should be accounted for somehow as that's a significant calorie burn which shouldn't be ignored.

    If using MyFitnessPal your activity setting is used to account for your day to day movement patterns with deliberate exercise being added on top. Your 2000 goal is really 2000 + exercise calories.

    Walking can of course be either daily activity or walking for purposeful exercise so have a think how you would prefer to factor it in.


    PS - I'm not an Apple user but directly synching can cause problems as the data isn't in the format that MyFitnessPal needs unless synced via an intermediate app like Pacer.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
    it depends on what you have your activity level set at. I have my activity level as sedentary, simple because on days when I don't work out, my step count is super low.

    the way mfp is designed is for you to eat back at least SOME of your exercise calories. But how accurate those are, is highly subject to the person. 2 weeks is not long enough to determine if you should be eating them back or not. I would go by 4-6 weeks of watching the data and scale to see if weight loss is as expected, or more or less than expected, and adjust from there.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »
    it depends on what you have your activity level set at. I have my activity level as sedentary, simple because on days when I don't work out, my step count is super low.

    the way mfp is designed is for you to eat back at least SOME of your exercise calories. But how accurate those are, is highly subject to the person. 2 weeks is not long enough to determine if you should be eating them back or not. I would go by 4-6 weeks of watching the data and scale to see if weight loss is as expected, or more or less than expected, and adjust from there.

    It's designed to eat back ALL of your actual exercise calories.

    Eating some is a way to avoid eating back more than you burned if you suspect estimates are exaggerated.
    The database here is just one potential way to estimate exercise expenditure.
  • charlierob02
    charlierob02 Posts: 2 Member
    Thanks for the info, my watch IS synched to the MFP app, but was wondering why this second week I lost nothing, although it may be to do with last saturday when I eat loads, which obviously factored in my overall weekly deficit. WIll monitor 4-6 weeks as suggested as if nothings moving in that time, I will need to look at what Im doing wrong.
  • Trish1c
    Trish1c Posts: 549 Member
    If you are hungry, eat. If you are not hungry bank the deficit & be thrilled for yourself.

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