does grocery store walking count

WattsJA

No .. I do not believe it should be added as it is counted in your daily activity level. I don't feel like it is enough of a "challenge" to add because there is too much starting and stopping and getting behind slow people.

backinthenines

It depends whether the activity is outside of the "status quo" for you or not.

Personally I think you should not count things that you already used to do when you were overweight.

But if this is new for you to walk to the shop instead of driving, if it's a substantial walk (like 30 mins) and you're going to walk home with heavy bags and you wouldn't USUALLY do this, then perhaps there is an argument for counting it.

ajbeans

Personally I think you should not count things that you already used to do when you were overweight.

This is backward, though. Lots of overweight people go to the gym but don't lose weight because they're not eating right. So would you tell those people not to count the cals burned at the gym, because they used to do it before they started counting calories? Of course not.

It has nothing to do with your old lifestyle. It has everything to do with accounting for calories burned. If you have your activity level set to "sedentary," then anything you do that gets you up and moving for more than a few minutes counts toward your calories burned. It's probably not many cals, but they count, if you want to count them. It's moving. It's especially important to count them if your net goal is 1200, because if you don't count them, you could be netting less than 1200 and not even know it, and then your weight loss will stall.

Personally, I don't count things that don't get my heart rate up, but I do count things like vacuuming if I'm doing it for an extended period of time, or taking a walk with my kids, even though I'm not going super fast. I personally don't count going to the grocery store because I do it rarely and it doesn't take much time for me, but if I spent a lot of time shopping and much of it was spent moving (rather than standing there for 5 minutes trying to read labels or something, like I do) then I would count it. I wouldn't count a lot of calories, but I would count it.

backinthenines

Well, we also burn calories while sitting on a sofa but that doesn't mean sofa sitting generates weightloss.

I think by counting every tiny exertion, and thinking this instantly qualifies for extra calorie replacements is perhaps exactly why some people are not making a huge amount of progress.

On another site similar to this some people were adding stuff like "personal grooming"... well I wonder how many have lost significant amounts of weight while brushing their teeth.

MzBug

I count my trips to the store, but I also use the parking lot as my walking track. I will do a few brisk "laps" around the parking area before I go in and do my shopping. The area around my house is not safe for walking, and the strip shopping centers around here have nice big well maintained lighted parking lots. My trips usually take 60-90 minutes and I log 30 min at 2mph...so about half the time and half the speed gets logged.

ajbeans

Well, we also burn calories while sitting on a sofa but that doesn't mean sofa sitting generates weightloss.

Yes, actually, we do count that. It's how we calculate our BMR, which then helps us set goals. That's why we choose our activity level in the first place.

I agree with you that counting every little thing can be detrimental, especially if you're not using a HRM, because this site overestimates calories burned a lot of the time. But to say that you absolutely can't count a trip to the store is not accurate. It depends on the person, and it depends on the trip.