Walking (shoppinng)

kellesee

Hi,

How many calories do you think are burned by shopping? (i.e. "shopwalking") This has got to count for something!

Just regular walking. Walking, standing, looking...for hours.

laele75

I am a stay at home mom. I am also a single parent. I am the sole caretaker of a disabled child. I set my activity level to lightly active, to cover things like housework and errands, since I do everything. That way I don't have to wonder how many calories these activities burn.

Mslmesq

I would say walking 2.0 covers this.

kellesee

This "exercise tracker" is asking me about my exercise for the day. Today is my first day and so far, all I've done is shop, so I wanted to record something. My activity level in my profile is "sedentary" ...

kellesee

Thank you...I'll use 2.0

silken555

I don't wander about when I shop. I walk quickly and I'm lightly steamed by the time I'm done. Totally depends on your shopping style.

_Zardoz_

Did you not go shopping before you decide to lose weight? If you did its part of your normal daily activity

Athena53

You might want to get a pedometer such as a FitBit Zip. DH and I are always pleasantly surprised by how much a trip to the local Farmer's Market and the grocery store adds to our step count. Then you might be able to find out how many calories an x-mile walk burns for someone with your build. I should mention, though, that you need to consider what your body burns just by existing.. I once wore my heart rate monitor while driving a car and burned 30 calories in 20 minutes- in other words, I burn 90 calories an hour doing nothing, so if I walk 2 miles in 30 minutes and burn 200 calories the exercise generated only 155 calories. I would have burned the other 45 calories in half an hour anyway.

lcyama

if your activity level is sedentary, then walking does count as exercise.

QuilterInVA

Exercise has to raise your heart level for a sustained period. Walking around shopping is not exercise.

PikaKnight

Unless you are power walking around the mall like those mall walkers, I wouldn't count it

Nicolee_2014

I guess it depends on if it's just a 20 minute shop or you are walking around a mall for 6 hours.

I never log my shopping even if it's extra shops I do when I'm racing around the place with the kids in the stroller even though I do work up a sweat some days (probably due to the climate in the mall being 10 degrees higher than it needs to be).

EmilyJackCO

Unless you are power walking around the mall like those mall walkers, I wouldn't count it..lol.

My favorite mall is a mile all the way around, and I make at least 3 trips around it and I'm usually in a HUGE hurry to make a movie or something too... My Fitbit puts it all as active minutes and it's usually an extra 10,000 steps by itself. So it shows up... and my power shopping IS exercise! I don't add it in extra though, as I usually always hit a workout that morning too. I'm doing this next weekend to gather some stuff and go see Elysium.

A_Fit_Mom

if your activity level is sedentary, then walking does count as exercise.

I have mine set to sedentary. But I do not count shopping as exercise. But if someone wanted to, then why not. I see some power walkers at the mall .

I am a fast walker anyway, but like someone said...I shopped when I was heavier. So I just think it is a bonus and never count walking..unless it is exercising and I am walking at 3.8 mph on my treadmill.

metalvegan

if you try to count stuff like shopping as exercise so that you can get extra calories, you're never going to lose weight. I'd take it as a bonus (if any calories were actually burned) and not log anything. When you actually work out by running or lifting weights or doing yoga then you should count extra calories burned and those you can eat back. You don't have to exercise everyday to lose weight - don't cheat yourself by thinking shopping is fitness.

JTick

Exercise has to raise your heart level for a sustained period. Walking around shopping is not exercise.

Says who? For heart health, sure. But that doesn't mean that I can't burn calories without raising my heart rate.

OP: You probably need to raise your activity level to account for shopping, etc. Unless you actually lay in bed all day, you are at least lightly active.

zyxst

I like how people are assuming she wants to track her walking in order to eat more. Some people record exercise to keep track .

action_figure

Sorry. I've worn my heart rate monitor for it, and it doesn't burn much above baseline. I've worn my UP band, and I can be running all day long through the stores and not hit over 6,000 total steps for the day. It isn't really exercise. Wish it was. My *kitten* would be smaller.

Woomytron

I would raise your exercise to light activity then you wouldn't have to worry about things like this. Unless you lay in your bed all day then there is no reason why it shouldn't be on light activity. I would find it annoying to have to log every single thing I do because I have it set at sedentary. :laugh:

angelac1296

I'm at a 1200 calorie deficit, so I log shopping and eat back about half the calories. Mfp seems to way over-estimate what is burned. Since 1200 calories is less than a person in a coma gets, I figure I should track things like 2 hours of walking around with my mom and sister every week. So what if we happen to be at a store instead of on a treadmill? The last thing my body needs is to kick into starvation mode and hold onto this fat!

siqiniq

Hi,

How many calories do you think are burned by shopping? (i.e. "shopwalking") This has got to count for something!

Just regular walking. Walking, standing, looking...for hours.

I use the slow walking for things like that. (18.5 min/ km)

siqiniq

Wandering around shopping is not exercise. Your heart rate isn't significantly raised and you aren't burning much more than just standing. If you want to log exercise then do some exercise. Searching for extra calories to eat won't aid your weight loss.

Moving at all burns more calories than not moving. Give the girl a break! It's her first day!

aliasbee

Seems like everyone is so rude about an honest question! I think it's fine to add shopping if you're keeping track of the time and such. I don't shop every day, so it is not part of my daily activity. I've tracked all sorts of things like doing dishes, vacuuming the back porch etc. These things lose a different amount of calories depending on your starting weight and how long the sustained activity is.

I've kept a consistent loss of 1.9 to 2lbs a week and there are no real discrepancies in my statistics for doing so. I have my lifestyle as sedentary. Some days I do just sit at my computer most of the day for work. There are a lot of websites online that will give you a rough estimate of how many calories you lose in a given activity. If you want a more accurate count, invest in a heartrate monitor or a pedometer of some sort.

Some people don't want to hassle with the extra data and that's fine, but I like to know what any and all of my stats are so if something changes I can figure out what kind of activities I was or wasn't doing and how they contribute.

Though if you want to make it count for more exercise, I'd start carrying the hand baskets, and if you have time/a close store walk to the store and back. I have one just a five minute walk away. I find I walk faster if I have a destination, or heavy groceries I want to get back. But I only shop for two people so this may not be manageable for your lifestyle depending.

I've found that the Jamba Juice near me is exactly far enough that I can reward myself with a small or medium smoothie. If counting calorie deficits from exercise makes you more motivated, I say go for it.

(Also as far as I understand it, light activity assumes about 10000 steps a day, which is about 4 miles of walking. I don't know about you, but living in an apartment and working from home I have to push real hard to hit that.)

Momjogger

Good for you! Any extra activity you do helps your metabolism. As your first day, this is a great first step. I try to add extra steps to my day, but I don't add that exercise as a calorie deficit unless it is walking at a fast pace, cycling, or going to the gym. Keep up the good work!

LorienCoffeeBean

do you have a smartphone? you could get an app that tracks either steps taken or, what i like, is tracked by gps so it calculates minutes/mile etc.
i use mapmywalk on my iphone. like this fabulous service for MFP you enter all your stats and it will calculate roughly how many calories you burn.

kellesee

Thanks, Kpedersen3, Aliasbee and Siqiniq. You all understood what I meant.

I think I better find another place to go.

Mokey41

First off, sedentary does not mean lays in bed in a coma all day. That is your BMR. Sedentary is defined as:
Sleeping - 8 hours
Personal care (dressing, showering) - 1 hour
Eating - 1 hour
Cooking - 1 hour
Sitting (office work, selling produce, tending shop) - 8 hours
Driving car to/from work - 1 hour
General household work - 1 hour
Light leisure activities (watching TV, chatting) - 3 hours

So the average office workers day. If you exercise beyond that you can add it or if you have a job that puts you as more active than that then you move up to lightly active. Also, being an office worker doesn't mean you get to work and drop dead in a chair. There is the assumption that you do move around during the day.

Second, wearing a HRM for anything other than steady state cardio (running, cycling, aerobics) will give you highly inflated numbers. So wearing it to drive your car is not accurate, neither is wearing it to get a burn while shopping.

One of the reasons so many people fail at weight loss is the mindset that every movement has to be compensated with food. Eat to live, not live to eat. You'll find that successful people who lose and keep it off have learned not to expect that everything they do is exercise beyond sitting on the couch and that everything they do doesn't earn them a reward beyond fitness.

Brisk walking for a sustained period of time is exercise. Unless you are going to the mall to walk at a decent speed for exercise then it's just shopping and part of your life.

kellesee

Thanks.:flowerforyou:

SheilaG1963

Thanks.:flowerforyou:

I don't log regular shopping, but if I'm at a huge flea market or mall and I'm walking for hours, you bet I count it. I've gotten in over 14000 steps doing that!

kellesee

That was a helpful (not hurtful) response. Thank you for taking the time to respond.

kellesee

Yeah. You're right.

Yuck .... how dark their lives must be. Glad it's not me.

ANNYYWWWAAYYY....... so, I should take off that "exercise" (which I understand that it's not, now) and raise my lifestyle to "light" or whatever that was?

This thing has me at 1200 calories. Isn't that too low?