As I mentioned, I got a Xiaomi Mi Band 4 for my birthday in 2020, started tracking everything I could right away. The official mobile application as always wasn't too good on the statistics side, but I found the Notify for Mi Band app, which targets forwarding notifications to the Band in a better way, but with time it also got a lot of features, as well as these stacked bar charts with customisable intervals. Sadly, the Calorie chart misses the Trend feature which aggregates for weeks, months and years, but it can still provide a much better overview than the factory app.
Here are two screenshots, the first one is when I started tracking, the second one is the 3 months after it.
As you can see in the first, I was working out every other day, because regeneration is important, as muscles are growing when you are resting, you go to the gym to literally destroy them, breaking down some muscle tissue, so it can grow back stronger.
Chart legend: red/pink (weekdays BMR) and orange (weekend BMR), green (workout), blue (steps).
The app calculated my BMR to be 2711 kcal, workout averaged out to 561 kcal in the first month, without the first week with steps only adding 133 kcal, as it was at the time of the 2020 lockdown and we were sitting at home all day.
On the second screenshot you can see 3 full months from April to June.
In the end of April I have switched to workout daily, every morning - because bodybuilders were doing it and I found better motivation for sticking to my diet when I worked out in the morning.
At the beginning of May, lockdown was lifted or we started to care less about it and went at least to the nearest playground with the kids, therefore steps increased significantly, increasing the daily calorie deficit.
The average "calories out" was 3649 kcal, while my "calories in" was 2275 kcal, that gives a 1374 kcal calorie deficit, significantly higher than the recommended 500 kcal, which gives you low energy through out the day and that's something that I managed with caffeine.
Now, I don't like coffee, so my sources were the pre-workout from Scitec every morning and Coca-Cola Zero saved the rest of the day. Totally messes up your sleep, but it takes away hunger and you can function better with low calorie intake.
Calorie distribution:
* 246 Mcal consumed by just being alive ~ 74% of the 3 months total
* 30 Mcal burned with steps ~ 9%
* 55 Mcal burned with workouts ~ 17%
Takeaways:
1. Only elite athletes can beat the body's basic needs with daily workout.
2. Walking is much easier than any other workout, uses a good amount of calories while not overloading any of your joints or muscles, therefore much safer.
Till you choose your sport that's a challenge and you can truly enjoy, you can just walk. Target 6000 steps, then 10000 steps, even 15000 if you like it. Don't have to do it in a single session, walk to errands, walk to work, walk back home, it adds up quickly and it does count, because you do it consistently, every day!
Tracking your progress - Workouts, steps