Should I count walk to work cals ?

toshie333

Hi, I am set at sedentary activity level as I sit at a desk most of the day. My question is, I walk from
My bus stop to work and back each day. Using a hrm it's about 220 calories burnt during the walk. Do I count it as exercise if I do it every day or just think of it as being included in my mfp sedentary target. Seems alot of cals to add before I've even been to gym.
I eat back most/all my exercise cals. My daily mfp target is 1200.
Thank you

ItsDiana

I count walking to school and back as exercise

CeeRawr89

I count all my walking!

Chloe_P78

It must be a decent walk if you're measuring 220 calories with your HRM. I'd definitely count them.

toshie333

Do you eat back your exercise cals? I guess the walk is 25-30 total a day. I'm on day 4 so asking questions x being cautious.
Set my level at sedentary so I can add exercise using hrm as think it's more actuate than submitting you exercise 3 times a week for an hour etc then not eating them back.

hanniejong

Yes, it is still exercise and a good one at that. I count all my walking. And yes I eat back my calories but often have left over ones at the end of the day.

Sarauk2sf

The easiest thing to do is to set your activity a lightly active - then you do not have to worry about it. Also, I do not think a HRM is very accurate for low-intensity exercise (but could be wrong here).

flabulous4

Yeah, count it. I'm sedentary as I have a desk job, so I just log any exercise I do. The walk to school and back is 10 minutes and while I wouldn't log into MFP specifically to add that, I'll add it if I'm on MFP to do something else! :happy: Every little helps!

toshie333

But lightly active would likely make it less accurate? Bit of a stab in the dark maybe. Maybe I'm wrong but I was thinking setting it to sedentary would just track my daily sitting at a desk then walking I could add more accurately using hrm Especially if I'm
Eating back the calories? Does that sound sensible or am I doing it wrong?

Sarauk2sf

But lightly active would likely make it less accurate? Bit of a stab in the dark maybe. Maybe I'm wrong but I was thinking setting it to sedentary would just track my daily sitting at a desk then walking I could add more accurately using hrm Especially if I'm
Eating back the calories? Does that sound sensible or am I doing it wrong?

Why would it make it less accurate? However, do it whichever way works for you - walking is definately energy expenditure and so should be included in your consideration of how much to eat.

toshie333

Well when you select lightly active, the number ir comes up with I'm
Assuming is an estimate of what lightly active means. Eg mfp could think that lightly active means a 30 minute walk 7 days a week, I might think it's 3 days so I'd be eating too many calories based on their interpretation and mine. I may have misunderstood, example is extreme but hopefully you know what I mean. Correct me if I'm
Wrong though cause like I said I'm learning x only on day 4. Thanks x

Sarauk2sf

Well when you select lightly active, the number ir comes up with I'm
Assuming is an estimate of what lightly active means. Eg mfp could think that lightly active means a 30 minute walk 7 days a week, I might think it's 3 days so I'd be eating too many calories based on their interpretation and mine. I may have misunderstood, example is extreme but hopefully you know what I mean. Correct me if I'm
Wrong though cause like I said I'm learning x only on day 4. Thanks x

MFP activity settings are on the conservative side, so that amount of walking would absolutely be lightly active. If you change from sedentary to lightly active it should change by about 140 calories a day - seems pretty in line with what you are estimating the energy expended for walking. But as I said, do whatever works for you.

FixItDuck

I have a sedentary job, and I count the walk to/from work - this usually is around 160 calories per day. Because I only work 3 days, I wasn't sure if I should use that setting or lightly active - on my non-work days, I am far more active (doing housework, washing, racing around after kids) so I probably should change it. Days like today, when I haven't worked, and went over my calories would have been under if I had the lightly active setting.

I have deicided to stick with the sedentary setting for now, because it's working and I am loosing weight, when I keep focussed and complete my diary every day(last week I was slack with the diary and consequently I was way off track and didnt' loose any weight!).