A scientific answer to the "does housework count?" debate

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  • afat12
    afat12 Posts: 178 Member
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    I would say vacuuming and mopping would have to burn some calories...
  • CollieFit
    CollieFit Posts: 1,683 Member
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    So does sitting or having a shower...... every activity burns calories... that's not to say you should eat them back.
  • MisterDerpington
    MisterDerpington Posts: 604 Member
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    Some people will count different things. Build a bridge and get over it.
  • LoosingMyLast15
    LoosingMyLast15 Posts: 1,457 Member
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    umm, when I do housework its mopping, vacumming, folding laundry, dusting, flipping the matress and changing the bedding, dishes, prepping for dinner, windows, bathrooms, cleaning the cat area (litter box, food they throw everywhere) etc, I put on some music and dance around while getting it done like every two days. I sure work up a sweat so you bet I count it. I don't care what some study says. Now of course, if its only straighten up and do the dishes and run a vacuum for only like ten minutes which is what I do on the days I don't truly clean, then of course that isn't to be counted but if you have to put on your workout clothes to clean so the sweat don't run off you then yes: its exercise. Sorry I am a debater, had to reply to this. I get sick of people saying cleaning doesn't count.

    YOU DO ALL THIS EVERY 2 DAYS!!!!!!!!!! please come over to my house. damn! i flip my mattress twice a year.
  • ldrosophila
    ldrosophila Posts: 7,512 Member
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    I agree with this, but only because you have to think of physical activity like a bank. The more you put into it even if its a small amount the more return you get.

    So if you say well I exercised today because I cleaned the oven. You have shorted yourself that 30-60 minutes of activity you would have gotten from exercise and may justify it with relaxing more.

    Movement is accumulative.

    PS-The one activity I have counted as "exercise" is when we moved, and I counted the box lifting as an activity.
  • redladywitch
    redladywitch Posts: 799 Member
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    FFS. Stop judging people. Why don't you just start working on *you* and leave other people alone? It's really none of your business! You and all the other judgmental people do not know everyone's *story* or reason behind why they log an exercise.
  • FrnkLft
    FrnkLft Posts: 1,821 Member
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    The topic says "debate" in it... and that's what we are doing.

    Seriously, logging these kinds of things really only makes sense to someone who don't otherwise get significant exercise. That's the bottom line.
  • broox80
    broox80 Posts: 1,195 Member
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    When I cleaned out my pool this spring to open it, I spent 3 hours fishing out leaves and doing strenuous things. That is one of the only times I have logged it as exercise and someone on my FL gripped at me for adding it. It was very strenuous, I was sore the next morning and it was something I didnt typically do on a daily basis, so I counted it!!! If I am washing down walls or cabinets, I will count that too, but its an out of the ordinary routine.
  • tula1980
    tula1980 Posts: 54
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    I do 5-10 hours a week of hard gardening. Digging, carry trugs of soil etc not sat on a ride on. As I've always done it it's never even crossed my mind to log it. I can't fathom why someone would log a 5 minute wipe down of the kitchen or 10 minutes pushing the Hoover around!
  • ash8184
    ash8184 Posts: 701 Member
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    Housework... depends on what it is. I KNOW my heart rate gets up when I get to vacuuming, especially with a shop vac (bending over). It's not to say I log every 5 minutes of it, but if I spend 3 or 4 hours doing something like that, I absolutely do log it. I know this isn't technically housework, but cooking is exhausting too - you know this if you work in a kitchen. I should wear a HRM sometime when I work to see what happens.

    But you're right, wiping down a counter is not log-able. Folding clothes, probably not a good idea to log. Cleaning a swimming pool or shop-vaccing for hours, probably is.
  • bugaha1
    bugaha1 Posts: 602 Member
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    I look at it like this, if I got fat doing it before I started really working out, it don't count.
  • brraanndi
    brraanndi Posts: 325 Member
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    I wear a fitbit almost 100% of the time so by way of counting steps I guess I count my house work.

    Then I do too not that I'm ever really actively seeking out to clean my house heh.
  • Gilbrod
    Gilbrod Posts: 1,216 Member
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    Do people really log in calories burned for doing dishes and folding laundry? LOL!!!!!! I can see shoveling a driveway when it snows, mowing the lawn on a push mower. But I have never seen people log in "dish washing" as a calorie burner. That would be funny.
  • AlliBarlik
    AlliBarlik Posts: 111 Member
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    umm, when I do housework its mopping, vacumming, folding laundry, dusting, flipping the matress and changing the bedding, dishes, prepping for dinner, windows, bathrooms, cleaning the cat area (litter box, food they throw everywhere) etc, I put on some music and dance around while getting it done like every two days. I sure work up a sweat so you bet I count it. I don't care what some study says. Now of course, if its only straighten up and do the dishes and run a vacuum for only like ten minutes which is what I do on the days I don't truly clean, then of course that isn't to be counted but if you have to put on your workout clothes to clean so the sweat don't run off you then yes: its exercise. Sorry I am a debater, had to reply to this. I get sick of people saying cleaning doesn't count.

    I agree with you. I don't take the nearly the full calories that MFP puts in---I should really use my HRM when I clean. I don't count daily cleaning. But deep cleaning. When I mop, vacuum, clean the bathrooms---then I do because at that point I'm sweating up a storm and I have to rest!! But that's just me. I do regular exercises at the gym 4-5 days a week, so I know that is where my real results are coming from.
  • Cheeky_and_Geeky
    Cheeky_and_Geeky Posts: 984 Member
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    I think it all depends on how you have your TDEE & MFP calories set up. I've got mine set to 1200 & count everything. It has worked great for me!
  • xmysterix
    xmysterix Posts: 114 Member
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    People stayed fit for thousands of years by doing mundane tasks without a gym, gardening, cleaning, chopping, lifting, painting, stacking, scrubbing, hauling, walking. If we still did all those things then we'd not have the levels of obesity we have today, I'd wager. I agree that 20 mins of dishes, or folding a stack of laundry isn't likely to contribute to "fitness". But I also know that when I'm logging any form of gardening/housework its something extra I've motivated myself to do since deciding to get fit like washing all the windows weekly or climbing up and down a ladder for two hours to reorganize the whole kitchen and scrub the shelves, mowing the lawn when I used to just let someone else do it, or digging up a new veggie patch. Heart rate, warmth, sweat...check! I find myself "inventing" physical chores to do where before I'd just stall, delay, avoid. I don't, however, count the things I did before: daily cooking, tidying, etc.
  • technobunny
    technobunny Posts: 131
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    Is it ok to log the times i'm intimate with my fiance too? I usually break a sweat, and only do it every other day so it's not part of my daily routine.
  • Qskim
    Qskim Posts: 1,145 Member
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    At MO when I started I used to check it out of curiosity but not necessarily record it or eat it back. What I was striving for was getting myself up to a daily level of activity considered average for my age etc. It wasn't that I was lazy at MO but I'd put things off because I was tired and sore. I started to work through all that and I'd get a kick/motivation to do more just to see the numbers at the end of the day. Now I don't look/care because I now know the value of increased activity not so much for physical benefits but mental satisfaction. I think at MO it did contribute some towards weight loss but of course it got to a point where that level became normal and other exercise had more importance for weight loss and composition.
  • zensugi
    zensugi Posts: 76
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    The source, read the source Luke: http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-966.pdf
    In our analysis, domestic MVPA was negatively associated with leanness. One explanation for the negative association observed in this analysis is that less lean individuals may self- report domestic activities as being more intense than their leaner counterparts.

    and
    We speculate that those reporting the highest levels of MVPA through domestic physical activity are either
    over-estimating the intensity or duration of this physical activity or are over-compensating for
    the energy expended in such physical activity through energy intake.

    So I'd say that fatties think they exercise more than they do and feel entitled to it more to compensate for the exercise. House chores are still exercise but you have to count them properly.

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