Does walking count

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sifiso
sifiso Posts: 21
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello everyone
Basically I have the Samsung health app on my phone which counts how many step I take a day and the calories I burn. My question is - am I right to include these on exercise tracking area here on mfp or do these calories not count ?

Replies

  • meligeezy
    meligeezy Posts: 3
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    I don't see why they wouldn't. I count walking around my college campus during the day on my exercise.
  • sifiso
    sifiso Posts: 21
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    I don't see why they wouldn't. I count walking around my college campus during the day on my exercise.

    Ah gdgd - worried I was being overly kind to myself
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    Was this part of your typical normal daily walking, not extra like walking dog, or walking to store compared to driving?

    Your daily maintenance without exercise already includes some walking in it, about 1 hr average daily slow paced walking, which would cover to/from car parking, shopping, around house, ect.

    But doing 45 min with dog, doing 60 min to store, around campus for 60 min daily - no. That's extra and can be counted.

    Make sure you take about 85-100 calories off the stated burn though, as what is reported to you includes what you would have burned anyway resting. It is NOT the calorie burn above and beyond what you would have burned already, it's total.

    So for eating back, take off the 85-100 calories per hr.
  • mcibty
    mcibty Posts: 1,252 Member
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    MFP tends to be very generous with the calorie burn for walking, so I would log half the time. I don't tend to count walking as I personally think it gives you more calories back than you truly need. Typically I'll log it if I've gone out of my way to walk somewhere and it's for more than half an hour. I walk to/from work which is 30 minutes total, but I rarely log that at all, unless I'm fudging my diary for the day.
  • ktsmom430
    ktsmom430 Posts: 1,100 Member
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    Walking most certainly does count. Many of us here have fitbits, or other ped devices.
    I count any activity that is not part of normal everyday moving around.
  • Noamsh
    Noamsh Posts: 79 Member
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    Depends on your activity level.
    If sedentary - I'd log it. If lightly active or higher - I wouldn't.
  • MMFabrizio
    MMFabrizio Posts: 17
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    IMO - Walking is great exercise, if it's continuous. Sure normal routine of steps here and steps there are walking, but it's not like going out for a walk. I would only count walking that you don't normally do in your day to day routine. But if you want to go out for a nice 1/2 hr or so walk, that would be great.
  • bethanytapp
    bethanytapp Posts: 79 Member
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    I use a pedometer app (footsteps) and assume the first 8000 steps are part of my normal (fairly active) day....walking around the office, cooking & cleaning, grocery shopping, etc. Although an actual normal day for me is only around 6000. Anything above 8000 I log as 10 minutes for every 1000 steps. Seems reasonable and that's the main change I added to lose 50 pounds in 7 months.

    Keep walking, just don't count all of it as exercise. :)
  • sifiso
    sifiso Posts: 21
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    As the app is on my phone it usually counts steps I take when I have my phone- so shopping, walking to work and school. Not walking around the house or class and such. Usually I burn about 300 calories from all this - so maybe I should just log 150 ??
  • sifiso
    sifiso Posts: 21
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    Oh and thanks for all the replies
  • tennisdude2004
    tennisdude2004 Posts: 5,609 Member
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    Hello everyone
    Basically I have the Samsung health app on my phone which counts how many step I take a day and the calories I burn. My question is - am I right to include these on exercise tracking area here on mfp or do these calories not count ?

    I would definitely add it.

    Whilst it might not get you ripped like high activity exercise - walking, even if at a slow pace, will still burn body fat (albeit at a slower rate).

    Best thing about walking is it works the butt (sorry glutes).

    Its great for a load of other things as well - like reducing stress and blood pressure.

    I think everyone should try and fit a bit of this into their activities.

    An easy way to do it is when you drive to the shops (I include myself in this information, I don't walk nearly enough as I would like) instead of looking for the lazy guy parking spot nearest the door, park in the spot farthest away (this idea is optional on rainy days).

    KEEP WALKING TALL. :smile:
  • xLittleMissVixenx
    xLittleMissVixenx Posts: 62
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    I logged walking when I had my fitness level set at sedentary, but I recently changed it to lightly active and now I don't because that includes walking calories anyway. If I was to go on a long walk that isn't part of my daily life then I would log it.

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