Lots of walking equivalent to cardio running??

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sellychan93
sellychan93 Posts: 15
in Health and Weight Loss
I do a lot of walking as a server, and often times by the end of my shift I am beyond exhausted and my legs and feet are beyond exhausted for walking, let alone going for a run.

Would it be alright to incorporate the # of calories I burn at work from walking as my cardio activity for the day?
Even though I am still burning calories, what are the major difference between walking and running? (Seems like a stupid question, but I mean, in terms of the impact it has on weight loss/ diet changes).

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  • Meg_78
    Meg_78 Posts: 998 Member
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    In my opinion, it would depend on what you have set your daily activity level at as to whether or not you should count that as extra exercise...I'm not doubting that what you do burns calories, but if you are already set as active, then you have already counted those calories, in a way.

    Walking is a good form of exercise, but I'm not sure if I would personal count this seperatly, I'd probably count it in my activity level.
  • RandomMiranda
    RandomMiranda Posts: 298
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    I agree with Meg_78. It will be more accurate if you set your activity level to "active" then don't count the calories from work. Walking burns fewer calories than running, though not by much. But if you are walking for 7 hours and MFP says you burned 800 calories doing that, to be accurate you'd need to subtract the number of calories you would have burned during those 7 hours if you hadn't been walking. Also, as a server you aren't constantly walking at the same pace, so it wouldn't be accurate to enter 7 hours of walking at a 2.5 or 3 speed. It would be easy to fool yourself into eating more calories than you are really burning.
  • KAYRRIE
    KAYRRIE Posts: 201 Member
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    Absolutely you can include that as part of your cardio. Put it under walking either brisk pace or if you're running around faster, for the amount of time you do it. That's a great natural workout.

    I can understand what the other posters were saying if you didn't include it as active in your calculator. If you're not technically "exercising", definitely include it. All that walking does burn calories. I used to run around like that too at a job and I know it does burn alot of calories.

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