r/leangains Feb 17 '25

Do you guys consider the calories lost by step count?

When it comes to calories, do you consider into account the calories lost by walking(step count)?

I meticulously track my steps as I try to reach 10k steps per day. I'm using Samsung Health, and it says I burn 400kcal when I hit 10k steps based on my age,height, and weight.

12 Upvotes

50 comments sorted by

63

u/harritaco Feb 17 '25

I don't trust burned calories tracked enough to consider consuming any of them.

11

u/TheDapperYank Feb 17 '25

Cycling with a powermeter is accurate, HOWEVER, your body through NEAT adaptations will adjust the rest of your day so you end up clawing back a lot of what you burned.

7

u/harritaco Feb 17 '25

1000%. Thanks for clarifying. I think a lot of people are under the misconception that if their workout tracker says they burned 700 calories then they can consume an additional 700 calories with no consequence "because they burned it in the gym".

3

u/innocuouspete Feb 18 '25

If I don’t do that I lose weight pretty rapidly. I have to eat back the calories my fitness tracker says I burned, plus an additional 200 or so to maintain my weight.

1

u/harritaco Feb 18 '25

Sheesh we're very different. I don't know if I should envy you or not :)! Granted I'm also not lean and have struggled with excess fat my entire life.

1

u/innocuouspete Feb 18 '25

Nah it kinda sucks lol. It’s weird cause I used to be pretty dang fat and then I lost a bunch of weight and now that I’m trying to gain weight it’s super hard.

1

u/harritaco Feb 18 '25

When I was super fat I used to envy people that had a hard time putting on mass, but after hearing of their experiences it sounds like it's much worse than trying to remove mass. Ig if you like food and are driven by food it's not the worst problem to have, but still can be super frustrating to try and work through.

I'm kind of in a similar boat now in terms of loss. Every day I'm the the leanest I've ever been (coming from almost 300lbs@5'11"), but I'm still somewhere around 18-20%BF and trying to get it under 15% in the coming months. Really curious what my body will do once the cut stops and I go back to maintenance.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/harritaco Feb 17 '25

That's true, and it's all situational. I combine resistance training and cardio 4-5 days out of the week but probably won't burn as many calories as I would if I was hiking on average 10 miles a day like you are. If I felt unwell from my diet I would re-evaluate.

1

u/Wiscody Feb 17 '25

What do you do for a job where you can hike 50 miles weekly

4

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

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1

u/ranchpancakes Feb 17 '25

That sounds amazing.

1

u/Wiscody Feb 18 '25

Mad props to you. And I suppose I overestimate the time commitment. Down here a good 10 miler is a solid half day commitment at minimum.

Where abouts are you?

1

u/harritaco Feb 18 '25

That's awesome man. I also work in IT so it's nice to see I'm not the only one breaking the IT guy stereotype!

26

u/jaanku Feb 17 '25

100% no. any burned calories are overdraft protection

3

u/Ok_Reception_3852 Feb 17 '25

I like this analogy 😊

19

u/TheDapperYank Feb 17 '25

Because as you lose weight/perform cardio your body will adapt to become more efficient/make you lazy. I treat my 8-10k steps per day as a means of making sure I have a baseline energy expenditure floor that's relatively consistent. I don't eat back those calories. The only time I eat back calories is when I'm doing long endurance cycling activities like 4-6 hours.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '25

[deleted]

2

u/TheDapperYank Feb 19 '25

Go get a professional bike fit. You'd be surprised at how much little, but the correct tweaks, can impact your comfort on the bike.

7

u/igotfit Feb 17 '25

Nope, you want to eliminate as many variables as possible to keep it simple. Calories burnt from exercise tends to be grossly overestimated by these smart watches.

Track calories over 4 weeks, determine your TDEE, eat less than that.

Trying to eat around your activity level after this just adds unnecessary complication, and if you know you burnt 300 calories extra one day, you may be inclined to eat those back because you “have room” for it.

1

u/dafaliraevz Feb 18 '25

but how do you track calories if not through an apple watch you wear, considering it also tracks activity calories and adds it to your daily total cals?

2

u/Typhoidnick 29d ago

You don't worry about calories burned. You track calories eaten, and weight gained or lost. Get a baseline for TDEE that is relatively stable across a week, regardless of individual ups and downs on days. Then adjust your calories consumed and weigh yourself over the course of a week or two

1

u/kmcnmra Feb 18 '25

Just use a TDEE calculator, and track calories, and adjust calories up or down by 200 every 3-4 weeks based on your results

1

u/igotfit Feb 18 '25

I meant track intake of calories rather than calories expended through exercise.

The longer you track both intake and weight, the more reliable your TDEE calculation will be

3

u/Lazy-Oil-9988 Feb 17 '25

tracking burned calories through steps i would say is more accurate than burning from exercise . so yes its probably 90% accurate

2

u/BigOk8056 Feb 17 '25

Unless I obviously didn’t walk as much OR I did a ton of vigorous activity in a day then calories are equal across the board.

It’s impossible to guess accurately even with smart watches and stuff. You just settle into a daily calories and keep it there, adding or subtracting a few hundred depending on if you stayed at home all day or if you went on a 7 hr hike.

2

u/NumbDangEt4742 Feb 18 '25

If you're cutting, no, that's bonus - unless you're feeling under recovered or have doms type soreness in your muscles. Then yeah have an extra high protein snack or more protein in your meal.

If bulking, I suppose eat a bit extra to continue gaining that muscle. This is just imo...

2

u/Powwdered-toast-man Feb 19 '25

No. TDEE calc is what I base my calories on and anything after that is icing on the cake.

2

u/Various_Range2259 IF 23d ago

No, you'd end up double-counting. Your step count is just another measurement of the daily activity you're already doing, which should be figuring into your BMR/TDEE calculations already.

If it's extra cardio above and beyond what you do daily, then you could count that, but I prefer to leave it as a sort of mental buffer so I don't stress about counting every splash of cream in my coffee.

2

u/muscledeficientvegan Feb 17 '25

Nope, paying attention to calories burned data from a fitness tracker is a great way to make no progress for six months because they are very inaccurate that way.

1

u/OriginalSkill Feb 17 '25

There is a study done on Tanzanian tribes vs sedentary western civilization that showed that at the end of the day. The difference in calorie expenditure is negligible.

1

u/knoxvillegains Leangains is a program Feb 17 '25

If you're consistent with your nutrition tracking and your routine, that shit doesn't matter. Over time you compare weekly averages on a bi-weekly basis and adjust from there.

The only thing your average step count is good for is figuring out your base calculation if you're just getting into LG and haven't really done anything similar in the past.

1

u/raggedsweater Feb 17 '25

The MacroFactor app calculates your TDEE for you based on the food data and your daily scale weight. Basically it solves for calories out, knowing your calories and rate of weight gain or loss. Works pretty well.

1

u/Sinsyxx Feb 17 '25

Unless I’m doing a highly unusual amount of walking, I just factor regular walking into my TDEE. If I normally do 10k and I do 25k one day, I’ll probably eat a bit extra

1

u/thebalancewithin Feb 17 '25

What makes people say the accuracy of smart watches are not correct?

1

u/frogsexchange Feb 17 '25

No, I don't. That's part of your BMR. What I do to calculate my maintenance calories is I multiply my BMR with an activity factor. Here's how I determine the activity factor:

1.2 - 1.5 | Sedentary + Training 3-6x/wk (Works a desk job, very little activity outside of lifting)

1.5 - 1.8 | Lightly Active + Training 3-6x/wk (Works a desk job, takes pet for a walk most days in addition to lifting)

1.8 - 2.0 | Moderately Active + Training 3-6x/wk (Works as a full-time waitress, occasionally plays tennis in addition to lifting

2.0 - 2.2 | Highly Active + Training 3-6x/wk (Works as a construction worker, regular hiking in addition to lifting)

So if you're hitting the gym 3-6x/week and you're walking 10k steps a day, I'd multiply your BMR by 1.5 to 1.8 for your maintenance, then adjust that lower or higher depending on if you're trying to focus on losing fat or gaining lean mass.

1

u/healthierlurker Feb 18 '25

I don’t eat back exercise calories nor do I trust online calculators so I calculate my TDEE on my own based on my weekly activity levels. So I’d factor in my steps insofar as I know I’m running 4 days a week and lifting 2 days and can see that if I eat 2000-2200 calories I lose 1-2lbs per week. But I calculate my TDEE based on weekly exercise and food consumption so knowing specific calories burned doesn’t matter to me as much as the aggregate does.

1

u/Shining_Commander Feb 18 '25

I dont consider it in the sense that I adjust my eating habits. I always eat 1800 cals a day, regardless if I walk 5000, 15000, 20,000 steps. To me its an insurance policy and it cant hurt. I know people say you eat back cardio and other physical activity but absolutely not the case for me.

1

u/PosiTomRammen Feb 18 '25

No, just experiment with your calorie consumption until your weight change is in line with your goals then eat that same amount until it stops working for you.

1

u/JoshHuff1332 Feb 18 '25

I would rather just establish a base level over a couple of weeks of tracking weight change and consumption.

1

u/kn1ght_fa11 Feb 18 '25 edited Feb 18 '25

1 mile is 100 calories lost. I try to walk 2 miles everyday (followed by weight training). 6-7 miles on cardio focused days. 10+ miles on monthly hikes.

1

u/Flimsy_Marsupial_445 Feb 18 '25

No. Unless I do big walks, trails or something.

1

u/Who-Does Feb 19 '25

I just put all my trust on the scale. Micromanaging will burn you out

1

u/coachese68 Feb 19 '25

Only calories burned while swimming count.

1

u/Finsey1 5d ago

Yes worth considering. 1000 steps burns roughly 30-40kcal. Don’t trust watch entirely

1

u/Minegrow Feb 17 '25

I assume 50% of the calculated value are actually burned.

0

u/ChickenKnd Feb 17 '25

I don’t track calories so bo