<p>Fireandrain, I could have written your post except I do eat too much food that is unhealthy. Part of it is what lergnom said about working out aerobically. </p>
<p>I dont know if I am losing my taste for food or what…but some foods I used to love like salads arent doing it for me as much. </p>
<p>I hate to drive. I like to walk everywhere.</p>
<p>Dbwes, I used to own a fitbit. I am not a short woman so I cant help you. </p>
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<p>Completely agree. </p>
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<p>A mile is roughly 1,000 paces or 2,000 steps (1 pace = 2 steps), but with individual variation (leg length, external conditions like weather).</p>
<p>My take, which has some backing from studies but this area is a scientific mess, is that aerobic recovery initiates a craving for glucose replenishment while recovery from lifting requires less immediate glucose. </p>
<p>I don’t trust the armband things because my brother tells me he gets 20k or 30k steps a day. I know him. It’s not happening. But any of these things are useful for tracking relative activity and you can and should calibrate them to some distance you know so you can estimate your actual mileage versus the recorded.</p>
<p>I think people also overestimate stride length. A mile is closer to 2500 steps (or 2700) for most people unless they are really stepping out and reaching for length. That’s for an average sized person - somewhere in the 5’8-5’10 range. Shorter tends to be more, taller less of course.</p>
<p>I like Weight Watchers, because it seems to quantify calories in / calories out well. At my weight, I am supposed to consume 26 points a day to lose weight. Plus, I can count most fruits and vegetables as zero points. Each point is ROUGHLY 40 calories, but I figure the amount out exactly with a WW calculator. For each mile I run or walk, I get approximately 1 point extra. So when I run for four miles, I know I’m only getting four extra points! That drives home to me how much work it takes to make up for a piece of chocolate cake! (I looked it up, and one-twelfth of a 9" diameter layer cake, with icing, is 14 points!!)</p>
<p>I find my Garmin Vivofit to be pretty accurate in terms of step count. It does count some motion in the car, so there’s that… I don’t use it for running or to actually believe the mileage, but it is a good motivator for me to get my butt out of the office chair, take a stroll, or go to someone’s office instead of emailing them. Before I got my stress fracture (sacrum) 8 weeks ago I was obsessively hitting my 10000 steps BESIDES my 35 miles a week of running. Now that I’m off my crutches I’m at 7000-8000 steps on most days. If I’m stuck in meetings or something I don’t quite make it and I’m still healing, so I’m trying not to do stupid things. </p>
<p>26 * 40 = 1040 calories. That’s a depressingly low amount for an entire day.</p>
<p>Well, it’s probably a little more than that, but I’m conservative if I don’t have the nutritional info. Points are based on grams of fat, carbs, protein, and fiber. You also get 35 extra points per week, if you want to use them.</p>
<p>WW is awesome! You also get 49 bonus points per week so it’s not as bad as it sounds. And, as ML says exercise buys you even more points. I know someone who’s been doing it for about 2 months and is finally losing weight after years of being annoyed by 20 pounds or so that just would not go away. Some people simply cannot self-regulate eating without keeping track of every morsel. They don’t think they are eating any more than the skinny woman at the next table. But, they are.</p>
<p>I suspect that since most veggies and some fruit is “free points” (but not zero calories and nutrition), one can always pile on more veggies - this is a clever way of encouraging people to satisfy their hunger with healthier stuff. :)</p>
<p>Yup. You are never totally deprived. That’s the key. You’re never hungry either and although a fruit plate or a can of beans may not be what you want to eat it will usually get you through the night until more points magically appear the next morning. I LOVE this program and have seen so many people finally get the weight thing resolved on WW’s it’s amazing. </p>
<p>Imo, the key is to not become overweight in the first place. Once that happens, your life will be a continual struggle to keep the weight off.</p>
<p>Not becoming overweight in America is difficult. It really requires you to think about everything you put in your mouth. Some people say, oh I can’t live like that, but you have to do it and it becomes automatic after awhile.</p>
<p>Adding the bonus points per day: 1040 + 280 = 1320. Still depressingly Spartan.</p>
<p>A friend and I walked 4 miles last weekend (16 minute miles) I wore my fitness counter and at the end we burned 250 calories. We were thirsty and went to the store. At first I picked up a regular snapple instead of the diet and it was 250 calories. My friend looked at me aghast and said " you mean we just walked 4 miles for an hour for a snapple!. Kind of brought it home for us 
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<p>CF - You can also stuff yourself with free bananas. LOL </p>
<p>I need to read this study before drawing any definitive conclusions. At first glance I see a huge problem that this seems to be a survey. People’s perceptions of their caloric intake vs. Actual can be vastly apart. I am sure NFL linemen aren’t obese due to lack of exercise.</p>
<p>I’m with frugaldoctor and idad on this issue. Unless one zealously tracks their food and calories in a dairy of some sort, preferably weighing everything that is not pre-portioned, it would be hard to remember and get a number close to the reality. Also, our food composition might have changed (fat taken out and replaced with sugar), so the calories might have stayed the same, but as sorghum said, human bodies are not furnaces, so different foods can have differen effects. Plus, food makers routinely understate the number of calories and/or how much they put in the package! It is counterintuitive as to why they would want to sell you more than less for the price, but they could be fined if the amount is less than what they state on the label. </p>
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<p>That is undoubtedly true, but you have to explain to me why year 2014 people are more inaccurate than year 1988 people in order to explain away the result. </p>
<p>Well, for one thing portion sizes have increased dramatically since 1988 changing people’s perception of serving size. Someone may report having eaten a bowl of cereal for breakfast when the reality is that they ate three or four bowls, for example.</p>
<p>If we ate more snacks and pre-packaged, processed food in 2014 vs 1988, that could possibly skew our calorie estimates. Im nit saying this is true, but just to guess where the differences could come from. People would think that they ate a serving of chips, but in fact they ate 2. Also, they thought they are some McD fries, but those were the supersized fries, etc. </p>