what walking pace is required for very active minutes to kick in

[United4Ever]

I did 22 minutes at a 17.13 pace. How much faster do I need to go to get it very active

[Colinm39]

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@United4Ever wrote:

I did 22 minutes at a 17.13 pace. How much faster do I need to go to get it very active

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@United4EverCreate a chart the higher speeds like this that I posted last week and you can see what effort is required.

If you need help read this link about creating activities manually.  I have to walk at about 4.2mph every 60 seconds to get 1 x VAM for each minute.

             

[Heybales]

So if your resting calories burn is indeed 5.5 cal / 5 min, or 1.1 cal/min, then it looks like METS of 6.4

So anyone should be able to look at their cal burn per 5 min, divide by 5, times 6.4, and that's how many calories per min to get VAM.

Actually, just did the test on mine. 1.3 cal/min.

I manually changed the calories on the 4 mph test entry to equal 6 x the resting cal/min (492), that gave VAM.

But change to 2 calories less 490, no VAM.

But doing the same 6 x calorie burn 492 on 3.5 mph, no VAM.

So combo of speed and calorie burn, at least 6 x resting, or 6 METS.

Which the best run/walk calcs show 6 METS as 4.45 mph level walking.

But I only tested down to 4.4, and it kept giving VAM still. So like you found, 4.2 is probably the minimum.

Which interestingly enough, 4.2 mph with grade of 1.1% is METS of 6. Huh.

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

Oh yeah, appears you need 3.3 METS to hit the Active Minutes.

[Colinm39]

I input my numbers which gave me 6.1 Mets which equates to the image I posted earlier for. VAM.

[slysam]

According to the Fitbit Faq article on very active minutes the standard is 6 METS. Now with walking, in my experience it depends whether fitbit tracked the activity or I logged it. If I logged it then I need to walk 4.5 mph on flat ground or a little slower in hills if using my heart rate monitor for the alternate calorie burn. For GPS based logging (like Fitbit's built in), I seem to need 4.5 mph regardless of terrain. If I just wear my fitbit and do no logging, I start seeing partial VAM credit for a walk averaging 4mph (I am 5' 1" though so I may be taking steps similar to 4.5 mph of a taller or average heighted person). Before I calibrated my stride and when I was a little heavier I saw this at 3.8 mph. I am not sure if this changed due to lighter impact in my steps (from lower weight) or from the changed stride length settings. But according to MET charts, walking on flat ground at 4.5 mph puts you in the right MET values for fitbit's published standard for very active mintues. I don't know the link offhand, but if you search the FAQ for "very active minutes" you will likely find this article. It was recently posted (I saw a staff member post a link to it about a month ago) so it may not have had this detail if you read a previous version. 

[Colinm39]

@slysamThe calculator that @Heybales provided gives me 6.1 mets at the 4.5mph with 0 grade for the 4.5mpg (green)  I showed in the chart earlier.

Here is the calculator again.. http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

[slysam]

Colin, yes the calculator you attached gives me 6.1 METs for 4.5 mph--though I may have rounded down and got the 6 METs for 4.5mph from a different MET chart. This calculator does give me a similar, but slightly lower calorie burn than fitbit does--at least when I did a 4mph test on a track it did. According to this calculator I would need to log 4.45 mph to see very active minutes. I can't say I have ever logged that exact mph.