should I record this?

kcdrake

I'm a college student and spend portions of my day walking around campus. I decided to try a new app today to record just how far I walk in a day and pace I do it at. I found out, added together, I walk almost 1.5 miles. I do it rather slowly, but that is still a good chunk of distance to cover. I walk an average of 2 mph (hey, I have an hour between my classes, I'm in no rush) and so I burn about 120 more calories than I have been recording.

I have myself listed as lightly active (or whatever the least active one is) because I spend most of my day sitting in class or doing homework. For this reason, I don't feel like I should increase my activity level.

So I guess my question is this: should I record this as exercise? A part of me says I shouldn't since my pase is so slow and it is broken up throughout the day. Another part of me says I should since it is a decent distance to be walking around each day.
What would you do?

dclarsh1

I think that amount of walking would be included in a "lightly active" lifestyle. If you had yourself at sedentary, then I would count it.

crking

It would depend on what level of activity you set your preference as when you joined the site.

rnroadrunner

I agree with the next to last post . don't add that. it is allready taken in consideration.

Elokyn

Agreed with the first two posts

valeriebpdx

I am in school and I don't count my walking around campus as exercise. I do count biking to school (7 mi RT) and the walking to and from my kids' school because it is sustained activity. My rule is anywhere I could have driven the car but I walked or rode instead is logged as exercise, anything that is inside ... basic getting around ... wouldn't conceivably have driven that distance is just living. Probably better to err on the side of conservatism and find a nice surprise on the scale than the opposite, right? Good luck!

questionablemethods

I am also a student and do a lot of walking around campus. I also walk 3 miles roundtrip to campus. I bumped my activity level up a notch to account for this and to not worry about counting it as exercise. When I was counting it as exercise (which I was originally doing) I found myself too often skipping my "real" workouts because psychologically I felt like I already had exercised.

(Don't get me wrong. Walking 3 miles is definitely real exercise to an untrained person. But I wanted to really take my fitness to the next level so wanted to count only the things that were more taxing to my body.)

If you already have "lightly active" selected, I wouldn't change anything. You might consider bumping it up a notch if you have selected "sedentary" or just manually adjust your caloric goals to allow you, say, another 50-100 more calories/day.