Should I count walking as exercise ?
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JeromeBarry1 wrote: »NEAT treats dancing and lawn mowing as normal life activities for sedentary people.
NEAT treats clearly sports activities as exercise.
Since I learned that, I've concluded that walking around the grocery store for shopping is not actually a sports activity and I won't log it as exercise any longer.
I started tracking my "net calories" in a spreadsheet August 15. I compare my cumulative calorie deficit, which should predict my weight loss, to my actual weight loss from August 15. I find that there is a discrepancy between the actual and the predicted weight. Partly, that discrepancy is explained by variations in cortisol, sodium, and meal timing. However, that discrepancy is consistently indicating that my claimed calorie burn in exercise (which decreases my net calories) is too high. In an effort to reduce the statistical discrepancy between my expected and actual weight loss, I'm hoping that this decision (to stop logging shopping trips as exercise) will help.
^This. I never bother with walking calories unless I purposefully walked for an hour or so.
And great idea tracking on a speadsheet.0 -
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I'd count a shopping spree if and only if your daily activity is set to "sedentary"
Fitness trackers count every step, and you start getting extra calories above 5000 steps.
Finally, what is this absurd idea that dancing and mowing the lawn burn nothing extra? DANCING? What do people call standing in one place and wiggling their shoulders a little? Then fine. But I have been doing ballroom and bellydance for years, and that is a tough workout!
And mowing the lawn...I wouldn't say you get much if it's a riding mower on a flat suburban lot, but a push mower is also real workout, particularly if you have a couple acres of hilly land; even a riding mower on hilly terrain activates the core.
Some definitions of "sedentary" defy sense and reek of fitness elitism.
I'm with you on fitness elitism. I'm especially annoyed by the "only purposeful exercise counts" attitude. My mom does very little "purposeful exercise" but is extremely non-purposefully active and has to work to stay above Underweight.
I also find it bizarre that there is never any pushback about steps counted with activity trackers yet there is pushback when one takes steps without a fitbit.
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Walkung is the only exercise i do, purposeful walking though. I wouldn't class strolling around the mall, stopping and starting as purposeful exercise.1
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kshama2001 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »
I sort of see this as encouraging adding in cooking, doing the laundry, vacuuming, getting ready for work, walking around at work, etc. to be counted as exercise. Its not the same thing, it sounds good, but it does not work that way..
How about for today, we tell OP its ok to log it and eat some of them back, but in the future it is part of the day to day (NEAT) and is included in her calories already.
But walking around work IS counted as exercise by activity trackers.
Now that I have a FitBit, I no longer log my regular cooking and cleaning, but I do log major cooking sprees for infrequent family gatherings. I'm going to be moving this fall, and I will count the cleaning I do for that.
I have the fitbit Alta and i get zero active minutes when i go shopping.It starts tracking walking as exercise/activity after 10 solid minutes of walking, no shuffling or stop start.
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Yes, you count it - but I don't eat back the calories from it....not unless I'm running a 26m marathon each day or something that warrants it.0
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If you walk a lot, I think it's better to account for it by raising your base activity level. 2.4 km in 3 hours is less than 1km/h so I'm not sure you'll find an entry for that. Is "standing" a thing you can log? (I don't log any walking, but have myself listed as lightly active - which may be an underestimate.)0
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I have my activity level set to sedatary, so I track walking. I also use my heart rate monitor to track calories burned while house cleaning - but I clean like a mad woman. I eat back most of the earned calories, since my calorie goal without activity is pretty low (1200).0
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*sedentary0
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When I'm posting on MFP typically I'm walking. Yay smartphone. Does have the downside that I post too much and have to constantly edit away autocorrect mistakes.4
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The high-level answer is extremely simple.
If the activity in question results in you burning more calories than the number of calories that are included in your MFP activity level the answer is that you should log the excess as exercise and eat it back in order to achieve your MFP goals as selected
The details of determining all that with some precision is where things get more complicated. The ever popular idea that it is always better to overshoot your goals also does not help.
Mfp defines sedentary as BMR x 1.25. lightly active as BMR 1.4 , active 1.6 very active 1.8
If you move around more than 45 minutes or so in a day (call it 5000 steps) you have exceeded sedentary. 75 minutes/7500 steps takes you above lightly active.
The accuracy of your food logging is a factor. So does whether you've artificially bottomed out at MFP's minimum eating target.
Maintain a reasonable deficit which for most people is NOT 2lbs a week. Use a trending weight app or web site. Compare your expected and actual results. Adjust. The End.2 -
I didn't follow it all but the answer is actually pretty simple. Everything you did consider in determining your activity level is not counted.
Everything else is counted.
If you are cheating yourself or for some reason burn less/more then you think you will find out in a week or two1 -
If walking is what your planned exercise is, yes, count your walks. Do not count shop walking as exercise - unless, that is you are being one of the "mall-walkers" that take advantage of open space to walk in the winter freeze or summer heat with a continuous walk. The way I look at it - I got to be way overweight shopping, cleaning, cooking (even for extremely large groups of 50+ people), gardening, mowing, raising 3 kids, chasing dogs, taking care of elder in-laws, throwing hay - yep, I ate too much. Now, I only even start to look at calories burned if it is a planned burn - weights and extended cardio. My walks around the office building do not count in that. I'm always interested in what my FitBit says at the end of the day - but, be cautious of eating back those calories. It counts "steps" as I sit at my desk typing....so, how accurate can it really be?0
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Christine_72 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »
I sort of see this as encouraging adding in cooking, doing the laundry, vacuuming, getting ready for work, walking around at work, etc. to be counted as exercise. Its not the same thing, it sounds good, but it does not work that way..
How about for today, we tell OP its ok to log it and eat some of them back, but in the future it is part of the day to day (NEAT) and is included in her calories already.
But walking around work IS counted as exercise by activity trackers.
Now that I have a FitBit, I no longer log my regular cooking and cleaning, but I do log major cooking sprees for infrequent family gatherings. I'm going to be moving this fall, and I will count the cleaning I do for that.
I have the fitbit Alta and i get zero active minutes when i go shopping.It starts tracking walking as exercise/activity after 10 solid minutes of walking, no shuffling or stop start.
Hmm. My FB One counts all my steps. Before that I used an Omron that started counting steps after @ 10 of them, and separately tracked cardiovascular activity, which it defined as walking for 10 minutes in a row, like your Alta.0 -
So, today I went shopping for 3 hours , and according to runtastic , I walked 2.4 kilometers. Should I count it as exercise ?
No, because you were not walking that whole three hours, you were walking from store to store, stopping, maybe sitting. This is not intentional exercise, this is....shopping.
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The high-level answer is extremely simple.
If the activity in question results in you burning more calories than the number of calories that are included in your MFP activity level the answer is that you should log the excess as exercise and eat it back in order to achieve your MFP goals as selected
The details of determining all that with some precision is where things get more complicated. The ever popular idea that it is always better to overshoot your goals also does not help.
Mfp defines sedentary as BMR x 1.25. lightly active as BMR 1.4 , active 1.6 very active 1.8
If you move around more than 45 minutes or so in a day (call it 5000 steps) you have exceeded sedentary. 75 minutes/7500 steps takes you above lightly active.
The accuracy of your food logging is a factor. So does whether you've artificially bottomed out at MFP's minimum eating target.
Maintain a reasonable deficit which for most people is NOT 2lbs a week. Use a trending weight app or web site. Compare your expected and actual results. Adjust. The End.
And, how would one figure out those calories?
You can't use a heart rate monitor because that is for steady state cardio only.
You use MFP and any other app, or the numbers from cardio machines, and every activity is ridiculously inflated.
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I count 1/2 of my shopping walking, not all of it because there is so much shopping, stopping, trying on etc. but it is movement so it does count for something.0
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »
OK, so clarify "excessively long" please...
I am struggling with justifying the nights/days I actually just walk 3-4 miles with my wife as opposed to my run days. I am a bit of a HR/Data nut and am feeling like my average HR on the walks is not really doing much for me with regard to weight loss and/or fitness. I am thinking it is actually just more of a recovery event. If that is the case I will need to up the run days and cut back on the daily walks or do both, run at lunch walk at night... that with gym workouts may be too much for an old guy ;-)0 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »When I'm posting on MFP typically I'm walking. Yay smartphone. Does have the downside that I post too much and have to constantly edit away autocorrect mistakes.
Be careful! I've seen people walk into traffic while doing that
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I use a FitBit, I sit at work usually but have to walk to another building for mail or out to storage so between the time I get up and work I have any where between 4000-7000 steps. Sure it pops up here on MFP but I just do a little cheer in my head "yay me" but never intend to eat the calories it lovingly gives me. Then I walk on my TM at home about 45 minutes and get about 360calories (so the TM says), but rarely eat any of that back. Why? Because I'm not hungry and it's usually about 10pm when I finish now sometimes I have a yogurt or hard boiled egg but it's only if I feel hungry. So yes I see all the happy numbers but I don't eat them. 0
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Walking yes. Shopping at the mall - no.1
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I never logged stuff like that (shopping, yard work, etc), even if it was out of the ordinary...I just chalked it up to bonus activity. I only ever logged deliberate exercise...I've always viewed exercise as something that is purposefully done to enhance fitness...shopping never fit that bill...it's general activity.1
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Ready2Rock206 wrote: »Walking yes. Shopping at the mall - no.
Calorically speaking (if that's even a word), what's the difference? So long as you count it as slow...you ARE walking.
The only question should be whether your activity level already counts it automatically...if you are set on sedentary, it does not and therefore it should be added.1 -
eveandqsmom wrote: »Ready2Rock206 wrote: »Walking yes. Shopping at the mall - no.
Calorically speaking (if that's even a word), what's the difference? So long as you count it as slow...you ARE walking.
The only question should be whether your activity level already counts it automatically...if you are set on sedentary, it does not and therefore it should be added.
sedentary accounts for up to 5000 steps per day.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »eveandqsmom wrote: »Ready2Rock206 wrote: »Walking yes. Shopping at the mall - no.
Calorically speaking (if that's even a word), what's the difference? So long as you count it as slow...you ARE walking.
The only question should be whether your activity level already counts it automatically...if you are set on sedentary, it does not and therefore it should be added.
sedentary accounts for up to 5000 steps per day.
I thought we decided that mfp was 2500...and that wouldn't cover a shopping trip for me anyway
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SuzySunshine99 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »When I'm posting on MFP typically I'm walking. Yay smartphone. Does have the downside that I post too much and have to constantly edit away autocorrect mistakes.
Be careful! I've seen people walk into traffic while doing that
I walk type and read too, hence why so many of my posts are edited
I don't go out in traffic though, i get my 20,000 steps without leaving home. 0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »eveandqsmom wrote: »Ready2Rock206 wrote: »Walking yes. Shopping at the mall - no.
Calorically speaking (if that's even a word), what's the difference? So long as you count it as slow...you ARE walking.
The only question should be whether your activity level already counts it automatically...if you are set on sedentary, it does not and therefore it should be added.
sedentary accounts for up to 5000 steps per day.
My fitbit starts giving me calories after @ 2100 steps.0
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