Does every move count or do you have to do intense sport like HIT or heavy lifting?

Tatarataa

I have a general question: does every move count, like eg walking and moving around the stores or dancing or do you have to do higher intensity training at least after a while to burn calories? And does the body adapt and burn less calories after you have eg been walking a lot for a couple of weeks? Or is it a bit like with the calories that in the end every physical movement counts in and helps to lose and that the calories burnt remain the same?

MelissaPhippsFeagins

Every move counts. Whatever else I do, I walk at lunch whenever possible. I am going to yoga class today for an active rest day from lifting. Just do something...

AllanMisner

What are your overall goals?

Fat loss comes from what and how much you eat. Exercise should be based on the additional fitness goals you may have (strength, muscle mass, mobility, cardiovascular, balance, speed, agility, etc.). If general cardiovascular health is one of your goals, then yes, walking counts. If strength is your goal, walking isn’t going to do much to help you there.

nossmf

You move, you burn calories. The more you do the same move, the more efficient your body becomes at that move, the fewer calories you need, but it's still more than sitting still.

Tatarataa

Thank you so much! That motivates me! So basically every move counts, and it is good to add variety to keep the body from adapting!

kristinegift

Everything counts! You might not log it all as calories burned necessarily (i.e. walking around a store), but every little bit counts toward a fitter lifestyle!

bwogilvie

nossmf wrote: »

The more you do the same move, the more efficient your body becomes at that move, the fewer calories you need, but it's still more than sitting still.

That's not true, except for activities like swimming or Nordic skiing where improving your form can mean a dramatic increase in efficiency.

For walking, running, and cycling, most improvements in form increase efficiency by only a few percent.

So if you burn 250 calories walking three miles in an hour today, you'll burn the same in a year's time, presuming your weight stays the same. As you lose weight, you'll burn fewer calories doing the same exercise, though the relationship isn't always linear (in cycling, for instance, it's your cross-section that matters most, except for climbing hills).

As you become fitter, your heart rate will drop at the same intensity, but that doesn't mean that you are burning fewer calories; rather, it means that your cardiovascular system has gotten better at delivering oxygen to your muscles and that your muscles have gotten better at using the available oxygen. You'll also feel like it takes less energy to do the same activity. But that simply means that your total capacity has increased. A Tour de France rider who weighs about the same as me would burn about the same number of calories if we were both bicycling at 18 mph. The difference is that I would be at my limit, while he would be able to go a lot faster, and therefore burn many more calories per hour than me if he wanted.

meshashesha2012

generally speaking i only count stuff i do during exercise as exercise. i consider things like cleaning, walking up the BART steps, the 10K steps I take during my work day as just parts of my everyday life. After all, I got fat doing all those things so I don't see how they would magically help me lose weight just because I started logging it lol

retirehappy

You might want to read several of the posts on this page, one is about your TDEE, Total Daily Energy Expenditure. But there is a ton of great info links here:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/833026-important-posts-to-read