The Breakdown of Holiday Shopping:
Driving to mall/stores
Searching for parking
Walk to mall/stores
Spend money
Caffeine break to re-charge
Spend more money
Walk again
Lunch break
Walk once again
Spend more money
Walk…..again…..to find the car with gifts in tow
Put feet up as exhaustion has taken over
No matter what your holiday shopping experience looks like, for those that do not do all of there shopping online, a day of shopping can be very tiresome. I admit, I have done most of my holiday shopping online this year but after talking with my mother about her day of Christmas shopping it made me exhausted just thinking about it. Take my mothers shopping experience as an example. Once she completes her one hour drive to the nearest city she drives around looking for parking, walks to the mall/stores, walks all around the mall/ stores to check things off her list just to repeat this same scenario another several times. When I got off the phone the other day with my mother to see how her day of holiday shopping was going she exclaimed that she still had another 3 stores she needed to go to…and this was at 5pm! I was tired just thinking about it. Then I wondered, how healthy holiday shopping, or regular shopping therapy if you are like me, can actually be.
Even though calorie expenditure has many variables such as current weight, shopping is a great way to be active and blast those calories.
WEIGHT APPROX CALORIES
IN POUNDS BURNED PER HOUR
Lounging on the couch
100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
200 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
300 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Standing in line
100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
200 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
300 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Walking slowly (2 mph)
100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
200 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
300 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
So how many calories do you burn while doing these long days of shopping you may ask! Well…
During three hours of shopping at a mall at a leisure pace (2 miles per hour) an individual can easily walk three miles! For a 150 pound woman, that means burning 200 calories per hour or 600 calories per 3 hours. Now, if you have to stop and wait in line to check out and go through racks of clothes since most of just don’t just walk continuously for 3 hours when shopping, a 150 pound woman could expend 175 calories per hour. The confusing part is segmenting this out into how much time you actually spend walking versus standing. Now, don’t forget all the shopping bags you have in tow! Carrying purchases help you burn additional calories just like carrying your child around burns calories.
Even though the calculations can be done the main thing to know is that you are constantly burning calories on all of your shopping trips! Shopping not only is healthy, maybe not for your checking account, but fun! Now I challenge you to use a pedometer or fitbit or any other electronic device to see just how many steps you are taking when not even thinking about it!
Happy Holidays!
References
www.healthyliving.azcentral.com/calories-burned-shopping-1387.html
www.nutritionatc.hawaii.edu/HO/2006/356.htm