I think people put too much faith in the “exercise” of walking around shopping. I jog on an eliptical machine and burn approximately one calorie every five seconds or so. That being said, how long do you think it takes you to burn a single calorie slowly browsing the aisles in a department store – stopping evey few seconds? Probably about thirty seconds – right?

So when you’re casually shopping, you’re burning about sixty calories every half an hour. That’s not even a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. And you’re wondering why you don’t lose any weight “with all the exercise” you get. And then you have “briskly walking” in your target heartrate “fat burning zone”. Well that’s a bunch of sad wishful thinking. Yes, it burns fat – but the more effort you put into it, the better the results you’ll get. Walking faster than “briskly” will get you much better results – and might actually burn enough fat for somebody to notice.