Step count and equivalents

If you want to compare the effort you did in each individual day, there are much better ways to see your progress than counting steps - for example the Training Load, Intensity Minutes, or Active Calories.

I guess it depends on what progress you are looking for huh? You may be assuming you know what I am looking for.

Again, I go back to the fact that NEAT ( measured typically with ‘steps per day’) is a completely different measure than effort, vo2max, training load, etc. I already track the other things as it offers insight to fitness, cardiac performance, and athleticism. I want to be able use steps to help correlate weight management, hormone and recovery responses, sleep, and a ton of other health marker correlated with NEAT (steps per day).
Also, yes. Of course, I know steps are not measured in non-step activities. That’s pretty obvious. That said, steps per day has been measured enough that we do have some equivalents that you could calculate to have sense of general activity levels. These exact same comments seem to always come up when I try to raise this point. NEAT or ‘steps per day’ are not about fitness. At least not for someone who is already athletic. Perhaps some background in what NEAT is and what it is correlated with would help. You can look up ‘non-exercise activity thermogenesis’ on Scholar for more information (I tried to link it, but that wouldn’t work). Technically, the evidence behind NEAT would suggest we ought to NOT count steps when doing any exercise or training.  But that is a little flawed bc most of the studies don’t really exclude those numbers either. They just measure total step per day.
Anyway…way off topic. It’s still apples and oranges. We should figure out a way that would t is all oranges, otherwise the measure is kind of pointless.

Garmin watches will constantly measure your heart rate and your calorie expenditure so no need to go the way over steps when you can get the value right away. 

It is not the same value. It’s not only HR, or calories per se. the use of large functional movement in low effort states changes the dynamic of total body function. Again: NEAT.  The neuroendocrine system is impacted, smooth muscle performance.  Autonomic function.  … of steps are so useless… why are they tracked in the first place?  

It is not the same value. It’s not only HR, or calories per se. the use of large functional movement in low effort states changes the dynamic of total body function. Again: NEAT.  The neuroendocrine system is impacted, smooth muscle performance.  Autonomic function.  … of steps are so useless… why are they tracked in the first place?  

NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), is "energy expenditure during activities that are not part of a structured exercise program". That's the definition from scientific literature. In other words NEAT is the same thing as Calories (energy expenditure). If you do no structured exercise programs, then you can use Calories from Garmin directly. And if you want NEAT without some (or all) of your activities, then you can deduce the Calories reported in the activities.

Converting swimming, biking, and other sports into equivalent of steps would be a complicated and absolutely inaccurate workaround. And in general using steps (and I mean even the true steps, not only the converted ones) for calculating NEAT is grossly inaccurate and unnecessary. Using Calories is much more straightforward.

3988522 said:

why are they tracked in the first place?  

Because lots of people want to see how many actual steps they take.

I know what NEAT is very well. It is not dependent on HR. From my understanding, Garmin uses heart rate to determine calorie expenditure. When you consider what a calorie is, it is the production of carbon dioxide and heat. The kilocalorie calorie is the unit of heat. if you are at a certain level of health and fitness, your heart rate will not necessarily respond to generalized activity the way it would for somebody of less fitness. Therefore, not all neat will be captured by Garmin.

Further, if you are a person that trains, which I do a considerable amount, calories from training and calories from non-training activities can get muddled pretty easily. I do hear what you’re saying. And I have tried to use that function a little bit more in the last few months when I have been cross training more often. But it seems like it’s pretty inaccurate. Especially when I am adding swim activities.

That said I do agree with the complication of trying to convert non-step related activity into steps. It is a complicated and relatively inaccurate approach. However, the counter argument is that the step counts are much more inaccurate when there is a discrepancy. The other alternative is to eliminate steps from all training activities. Only counting steps during non-training activities would be the technical right answer. 

One of the reasons I like Garmin: the functions of the watch are aimed at real data points that athletes and other users can reliably use in their health and fitness goals. It is not just for gratuitous talking points.  I am just saying if we are going to track steps then it should be usable And reliable data.