Mumsnet Talk

Got mine today. Can see that I have done at least 80000 steps but have earned no points. Surely that is not right? I should have earned a few points? It's now gone on to the next day so I have pressed the review button and can see for Day 1 I have earned o points? I am walking along busy main roads so can't hear the beep for each point you earn. What's happening? I had hoped that by having this thing pinned to my belt I would lose weight more easily - have I been duped??

do you really mean 80, 000 steps?

Or is it 8,000?

If only 8,000, you will not have earned extra points.
From memory ( I used to have one)
you need about 10,000 steps before you START to earn points.

Then it is about 1 point for each 3,000.

You need to knock your pan in with exercise for it to make a difference to your weight. It's mostly about diet

Oh gawd yes it was 8000 NOT 80,000 !!

Yes jasper, you're probably right about the 10000 mark. I never save up points and carry them over or deduct points for exercise anyway. I'm mainly just wanting to track how much I walk in a day and aim to walk as much as possible (easy when you don't drive!).

I lost a lot of weigh sticking just to the points, without doing so much as a step of exercise!

Mine depends on how fast I've done the steps. If I've walked 6000 steps before lunch, I start earning activity points at about 7000 [but only a half point moving up to one point with 8500]. If I don't walk a lot in the morning, then it takes longer to earn activity points [i.e first half point not reached until 8500 steps]. Basically, if I walk a couple of miles at once in the morning, I start earning points earlier [i.e walking 3 miles to playgroup]. Also, the faster i walk, the more points i earn. Leisurely strolls don't tend to add up points quickly.

Don't know if this makes sense. Sorry.

Thanks SGM. That makes sense but it does make a mockery of that slidey thing you get given in your first week - you know the one that lets you calculate your "activity" points. According to that thing if I do a LOW intensity activity for 30 minutes, at my weight of roughly 12 and a half stones I will earn 1 - 1.5 points.

On my pedometer, I have walked constantly for up to an hour or more, sometimes at quite a lick (working up a sweat and sometimes breathless), clocking up about 6000 steps and have barely earned a point. It doesn't really compute does it?!

As I said, I never offset my points so that I allow myself more because I've exercised - I just try and eat to my daily allowance and usually exceed it anyway!

The pedometer is great though for working out how many miles I walk in a day. If I do my usual run down to the main shopping part of town and add in the walk to school and back twice a day, I average nearly 3 miles and I KNOW that's a good thing however many points it is It's still not quite making it to 10000 steps (usually about 8000) but I do have housework to do too so can't spend my days constantly walking!

I think activity points only kick in when you've reached a basic amount of exercise deemed 'healthy'. So, if you going swimming in the morning for 20 minutes which should earn you 1 activity point but then spend the rest of the day lounging about on the couch, you haven't actually met the criteria for basic amount of necessary walking to be healthy. Therefore, your swimming wouldn't give you activity points since it would only be part of the necessary daily exercise to be healthy [as opposed to losing weight].

You would only collect activity points for swimming for 20 minutes if you had also walked the 8 - 10 000 steps.

My WW leader suggests not counting any activity points except for 'special' ones. So, don't count any points earned walking even if you get 2 or 3 a day, but do count if you go to the gym and workout strenously for an hour. However, if you earn 8 points at the gym you also shouldn't eat more than 4 of those points extra a day.

Yes I think that makes sense. At the moment I am concentrating on getting my weight down so that more serious exercise is not such torture (hopefully). Running in particular is something I don't want to start until I am officially Overweight rather than Obese which I was when I started at WW 7 weeks ago. Nearly there

Make sure you have your 'step' measurement input properly.

10,000 is about 4 miles.

Does anyone know about adjusting the sensitivity of the WW pedometer - I was having doubts that it was measuring the number of steps correctly so did a little test. I reset to zero and then walked to school counting EVERY step. I live very near (thank goodness) and counted a total of 500 steps (give or take a step or two) - when I looked at the pedometer it had only registered me as having taken 287 steps? That's hardly accurate is it?