Walking (shoppinng)

Seems like everyone is so rude about an honest question! I think it's fine to add shopping if you're keeping track of the time and such. I don't shop every day, so it is not part of my daily activity. I've tracked all sorts of things like doing dishes, vacuuming the back porch etc. These things lose a different amount of calories depending on your starting weight and how long the sustained activity is.

I've kept a consistent loss of 1.9 to 2lbs a week and there are no real discrepancies in my statistics for doing so. I have my lifestyle as sedentary. Some days I do just sit at my computer most of the day for work. There are a lot of websites online that will give you a rough estimate of how many calories you lose in a given activity. If you want a more accurate count, invest in a heartrate monitor or a pedometer of some sort.

Some people don't want to hassle with the extra data and that's fine, but I like to know what any and all of my stats are so if something changes I can figure out what kind of activities I was or wasn't doing and how they contribute.

Though if you want to make it count for more exercise, I'd start carrying the hand baskets, and if you have time/a close store walk to the store and back. I have one just a five minute walk away. I find I walk faster if I have a destination, or heavy groceries I want to get back. But I only shop for two people so this may not be manageable for your lifestyle depending.

I've found that the Jamba Juice near me is exactly far enough that I can reward myself with a small or medium smoothie. If counting calorie deficits from exercise makes you more motivated, I say go for it.

(Also as far as I understand it, light activity assumes about 10000 steps a day, which is about 4 miles of walking. I don't know about you, but living in an apartment and working from home I have to push real hard to hit that.)

do you have a smartphone? you could get an app that tracks either steps taken or, what i like, is tracked by gps so it calculates minutes/mile etc.
i use mapmywalk on my iphone. like this fabulous service for MFP you enter all your stats and it will calculate roughly how many calories you burn.

First off, sedentary does not mean lays in bed in a coma all day. That is your BMR. Sedentary is defined as:
Sleeping - 8 hours
Personal care (dressing, showering) - 1 hour
Eating - 1 hour
Cooking - 1 hour
Sitting (office work, selling produce, tending shop) - 8 hours
Driving car to/from work - 1 hour
General household work - 1 hour
Light leisure activities (watching TV, chatting) - 3 hours

So the average office workers day. If you exercise beyond that you can add it or if you have a job that puts you as more active than that then you move up to lightly active. Also, being an office worker doesn't mean you get to work and drop dead in a chair. There is the assumption that you do move around during the day.

Second, wearing a HRM for anything other than steady state cardio (running, cycling, aerobics) will give you highly inflated numbers. So wearing it to drive your car is not accurate, neither is wearing it to get a burn while shopping.

One of the reasons so many people fail at weight loss is the mindset that every movement has to be compensated with food. Eat to live, not live to eat. You'll find that successful people who lose and keep it off have learned not to expect that everything they do is exercise beyond sitting on the couch and that everything they do doesn't earn them a reward beyond fitness.

Brisk walking for a sustained period of time is exercise. Unless you are going to the mall to walk at a decent speed for exercise then it's just shopping and part of your life.

Thanks.:flowerforyou:

I don't log regular shopping, but if I'm at a huge flea market or mall and I'm walking for hours, you bet I count it. I've gotten in over 14000 steps doing that!

Well I don't know how I was being rude, I thought I was being helpful. From what I understand sedentary means you do nothing all day. Maybe I'm wrong but that is what I get out of it, light activity (again from what I understand) is walking around, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, ect. I would find it a pain to have to add everyday activities.. such as walking into my log. Then again, I don't have to worry about it because I have a bodymedia. Good luck, hope you find the answer you are looking for.

You know, my biggest issue with the "if you did it while getting fat, don't count it now" is that you weren't actively tracking calories in while getting fat, were you? This is part of the reason I love my fitbit. I'm set at highly active, and most days, even rest days, I wind up with at least a modest adjustment from my fitbit - I regularly clock 10+ miles a day. Set your activity level honestly, and log what goes over and above it (or go the easy route and get a fitbit or something similar).