Do you count steps towards calories burned?

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If I take 10,00 + steps a day do I add some of this to my exercise or is it part of my regular daily calories burned?

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  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    If you do it regularly, you should incorporate it into your regular daily calories. In your setup, you choose an average daily activity level--figure out how your 10,000 steps match whatever level is listed.

    There are 3 components to daily energy expenditure:

    1. Basal Metabolic Rate: this is the number of calories burned if you were completely at rest all day, the basic amount for the body to keep itself functioning.

    2. Casual Activity: this includes your normal functional, recreational, and occupational activity; walking the dog, daily housework, the amount of activity you do on the job. You should take all of this into account and choose an average activity level. Since it is an average, you want to look "big picture"--i.e. some days you may do a little more, some a little less; don't automatically add "extra" for a day when you do extra housework, for example.

    3. Exercise Activity--these are the actual calories you burn during exercise.

    It's mainly an estimate, so I would not worry about precision. Ultimately, it turns into a trial and error process.
  • mtweety33
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    Do you take roughly these same amounts of steps on a typical day? If so, then I would not add them to your exercise. It is just apart of your daily routine and those calories are already taken into account (MFP asks if you're sedentary, lighlty active etc.) when MFP decides how many calories you should be eating.

    Hope this helps. :smile:


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  • amanda89
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    Well I make sure I get to 10,000 steps a day, before I started trying I typically only took between 7000-8000. I marked myself as sedentary for activity level because I do sit at a desk for the majority of the day, but I ensure I get my 10,00 steps. So I don't know if I should be adding some of the steps to my exercise or not?
  • barbiecat
    barbiecat Posts: 16,992 Member
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    :flowerforyou: :flowerforyou: :flowerforyou:
    some of my 16,000 steps a day are from my line dance class, and two walks I take each day for exercise soI include those portions as actual exercise calories. I don't include all the steps because some of them are just normal activity.
    :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: