exercise confusion

la8ydi

Maybe I'm reading too many posts...but I think the more I read, the more confused I become. Soooo, if I'm reading this correctly, if I take a 30 minute walk every day (for example), it doesn't count as exercise because I do it every day. So does it only count as exercise if I do it occasionally, not every day...or how does that REALLY work?

grimendale

It depends on how you set MFP up. If you used the default setting and set yourself at sedentary, I would go ahead and log your walks, even if they are every day, and eat more that day to account for the extra burn. If you set yourself at lightly active, I would consider that to be part of lightly active and would not log it as extra exercise.

Azdak

There is a difference between "exercise" and "activity". Both exercise and activity burn calories and can contribute to maintaining a calorie deficit. Exercise also helps improve fitness, and usually burns calories at a higher rate than "activity".

A certain amount of work and recreational activity is already built into most estimates of daily calorie needs--even when one classifies daily lifestyle as "sedentary". The activity factor can be 20%-35% of total calorie needs.

A 30 minute walk is "activity" and will burn calories. It may or may not improve fitness (depends on your fitness level), so it might not be "exercise". However, it will not burn many calories (150-200). Depending on what you do the rest of the day, that amount may still fit within the "activity allowance" that is already factored into your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure).

In general, people use the term "exercise" very loosely, which might be part of your confusion. It doesn't really make any difference what you call it. Many people also feel they should separately log any movement they consider "extra" from their daily routine. That's where the different "recommendations" come from and that's what people are referring to when they make the distinction between something "done every day" and something done "occasionally".

These are just different accounting methods. The act of logging, or the decision to "count" one type of activity over another has no effect on weight loss per se. Some people do it for motivation, some out of a misguided fear of going into "starvation mode". And some just like detailed numbers. There is no right or wrong way to do the accounting. The only important thing is maintaining a deficit.

la8ydi

Thanks! I guess part of my confusion comes from seeing people log things like cleaning or grocery shopping - my job is very active (I chase eight one year olds all day) and I know that "exercise" for me to burn any extra calories has to be above and beyond anything I do at work every day. Thanks for the clarification! ;-)