Calories burned while grocery shopping

I wear 2 HRMs they both confirmed that when picking up and returning a tin of non-dolphin friendly tuna to the self I burned 0.2 calories.

Only 2? I prefer 5 --one on each limb in addition to the chest strap. Actually, the two on my legs are GPS enabled --so I get a better burn when I shuffle my feet back and forth while watching TV.

"Exercise is physical activity that is planned, structured, and repetitive for the purpose of conditioning any part of the body. Exercise is used to improve health, maintain fitness and is important as a means of physical rehabilitation"

Physical activity is movement of the muscularskeletal system that uses energy.

MFP asks you to log exercise. Whilst shopping is a physical activity it is not an exercise so I wouldn't log it.

If one day you shop, one day you clean, one day you garden, 4 days you exercise then up your activity level and only log the exercise. From a calories burned point of view then I guess it doesn't matter (in that the math will work out in the end), but from a lifestyle change you need to get out of the habbit of treating everyday tasks as "exercise".

Otherwise the scenario of "I'm shopping, this will earn me 150 cals" could stay with you and lead to "treating yourself" for daily tasks.

Have a look at it another way. Do slim, fit, healthy people think about calories they are burning whilst shopping or driving or cleaning the house? No. And do you want to be a slim, fit and healthy person?

If you want to be slim and healthy you have to think slim and healthy. I had that posted in my bathroom for six months when I started on this lifestyle change.

I bought a heart rate monitor and wore it for days, while determining which activities burned the most calories. Was I surprised!!!!!

I found that my morning aerobics burned far less than I burned while vacuuming, mowing, ironing, grocery shopping, emptying the dishwater and cleaning up the kitchen, walking, etc. (Out went aerobics - but I did replace them with something I prefer)

I do want to say that given my weight, I couldn't move fast enough to get my heart rate up following aerobics. A more fit person would have very different readings.

So I determined my BMR and call myself sedentary. Then, if I want to compute net cals, I subtract all those isolated activities from my basic intake. (Of course, my life is mostly sedentary anyhow)

I say log it. You aren't just sitting around, you are in motion. Everything burns calories one way or another. Whether you are shopping or having "relations" LOL. If Harvard Medical School says its good enough, then its good enough, so LOG IT! I say get all the activity in that you can. And I agree with the first person who replied, if nothing else, log it in as walking. Now I wouldn't say it takes place of anything but its good in addition to. But actually, this is probably my only gripe with MFP... the database of activity is a lot smaller than other fitness sites. I have to go to other sites just to get info, then add it on here. Good luck!

Did you go shopping before you decided to diet? Did weight drop off you like crazy? If you don't log it and eat it back now is weight dropping off at an alarming rate?

Logging everyday life in order to earn more food to eat is ridiculous. Where does it stop? Exceptionally vigorous tooth brushing? Heavy pot scrubbing? The obsession with finding things to log in order to justify more food is a mental issue. Do you think thin people spend all day trying to justify having that extra scoop of potatoes or that cookie? It's not hard to understand how a lot of people became overweight in the first place.

I got a Fitbit, it tracks all that, and, it syncs to MFP too, so, there are days when I don't exercise in the traditional sense, but, I've earned 300-500 calories based off what I was doing.

My suggestion is if you want THAT specific of info, get yourself something like a Fitbit or other hrm so you can better track those.

Good luck.

I second this. I don't know about you, but my grocery store can be crowded, so there's no way I can figure out how fast I was going. Something like a pedometer that will see the steps you take or an HRM that will monitor your activity in a more detailed fashion will likely give you better information than guessing what you did.

I just let my FitBit log my walking activity (which is not part of my activity level calculations) and let it adjust my calories so that I don't have to worry about times, speed, etc. I don't log it as an exercise activity in MFP.

The site that I referred to said 144 calories per hour of grocery shopping.

And here is a good reference for housework and loading/unloading groceries.
http://www.calorie-blog.com/2011/05/how-many-calories-do-you-burn-doing_23.html

How about sleeping and dreaming. It cracks me up the things people want to add to justify eating more food. Unless it is physical exercise, I refuse to take that into account. People need to start getting serious.

Is grocery shopping something you just started when you joined MFP? If not then it seems like it would be included in your normal routine. Like cleaning the house, washing the car, cleaning the rain gutters, etc. But hey if recording it works for you then record it.

I only record specific time set aside for exercise that is additon to my monthly routine.

Shirley in Oregon

^^ this!

My thought process is that I only count things as exercise if it was something I did not do when I was fat. So, I still went grocery shopping when I was fat, so doing that "exercise" did not help me lose then so I am not counting it now.

I only count the things I do extra (i.e real exercise) to help me maintain me goal weight.

HTH.

I totally disagree with this. When I was fat, I ran three times a week, 2 miles.

When I joined MFP, it set my net calorie goal to 1200. If I didn't eat back my exercise calories from running, I would have been netting under 1000 calories three days a week.