does grocery store walking count

I would count it. Personally, I usually use a 10-minute duration as cutoff for something to go in the exercise diary.

I think that would already be worked into the activity level you listed when you joined. I don't add errands and the such onto mine. The only time I add extra walking is if i'm going on an outing where i'm walkking for several hours (like Disneyland, etc.)

i use 2 mph as my set. usually i am walking faster but it is stop and go. i don't count the grocery, but i do count my days at the hospital as a nurse (student). I am usually on my feet for 6 hours or more and walking/lifting and so forth. I want to give myself some credit so i remember to eat some of what i probably burned. that being said it comes in peaks and lulls so i always just low ball my guess.

I wasn't going to count it for myself the other day when I did that, but I wore my HRM and it was 45 calories total. So I added it.

most of the time I don't. However, yesterday I did. We went to the bigger walmart, and were there walking around for almost 2 HOURS! I logged 45 minutes of 2.0 MPH walking, because it was over and above the time I typically spend there.

LOL, I just did this the other day! I normally don't count it, but because I had no other exercise to record that day, I put it for my Hooray I did something factor. I put it in for about 100 calories. I walk slow in the store, but you have to factor in the reaaching and the loading the stuff on, loading bags in your car, putting away the food.....So, maybe don't count it as a regular activity, but when you need to fill in some activity calories, it is okay to use.

I think so much of weight loss is a personal journey. I think only you get to decide what makes sense for you. For example. If you were a sedentary person who is trying to increase your fitness level and who is trying your best to add activity into your life, and if adding walking to the grocery store makes you excited about fitness, then by all means, add it in!

But I'm a city girl, and I walk around town all the time. Adding a jaunt to the corner store, or the library, or the grocery, or to work, would make little sense to me (would also be time consuming...)

I've seen folks add in "housework" which I think gets into the realm of the ridiculous. But hey...if it makes them excited about fitness, who am I to judge? Maybe they have gigantic houses...

To me it depends on why you want to log it. Are you just wanting to keep track of your movement? Or hoping to use it to eat more calories? All of life every day, your body is burning calories. Sitting at the table eating dinner, you're burning em up. I just hate to separate out - this is exercise - this isn't - when there can be such a fine line. All of life is movement.

When my heart rate is elevated for a while, that's when I log it.

BUT, if you're having trouble getting motivated to move, and writing it down inspires you, then go for it. Everyone is different.

I do not add normal activity. For me grocery shopping is just part of my normal activity.

I only count intentional exercise (unless it's carrying boxes/ moving.... since those are really rare activities...). Everything else is the living I was doing when I got fat, so it clearly wasn't enough to maintain a healthy weight.

No .. I do not believe it should be added as it is counted in your daily activity level. I don't feel like it is enough of a "challenge" to add because there is too much starting and stopping and getting behind slow people.

Personally I think you should not count things that you already used to do when you were overweight.

This is backward, though. Lots of overweight people go to the gym but don't lose weight because they're not eating right. So would you tell those people not to count the cals burned at the gym, because they used to do it before they started counting calories? Of course not.

It has nothing to do with your old lifestyle. It has everything to do with accounting for calories burned. If you have your activity level set to "sedentary," then anything you do that gets you up and moving for more than a few minutes counts toward your calories burned. It's probably not many cals, but they count, if you want to count them. It's moving. It's especially important to count them if your net goal is 1200, because if you don't count them, you could be netting less than 1200 and not even know it, and then your weight loss will stall.

Personally, I don't count things that don't get my heart rate up, but I do count things like vacuuming if I'm doing it for an extended period of time, or taking a walk with my kids, even though I'm not going super fast. I personally don't count going to the grocery store because I do it rarely and it doesn't take much time for me, but if I spent a lot of time shopping and much of it was spent moving (rather than standing there for 5 minutes trying to read labels or something, like I do) then I would count it. I wouldn't count a lot of calories, but I would count it.

I count my trips to the store, but I also use the parking lot as my walking track. I will do a few brisk "laps" around the parking area before I go in and do my shopping. The area around my house is not safe for walking, and the strip shopping centers around here have nice big well maintained lighted parking lots. My trips usually take 60-90 minutes and I log 30 min at 2mph...so about half the time and half the speed gets logged.