Things I DIDN'T count as "exercise" last week....

Azdak

The 18 holes of golf (walking) that I played

The 2-3 mile walks I take with my dog

Cutting the grass and hauling 5 bags of yard waste to the curb

The 20-40 flights of stairs I climb each day at work

The squats, deadlifts, lunges, et al I demonstrate each day to my clients

The 500-1000lbs of weight plates and dumbbells I have to pick up off the floor of the weight room every day at work after the pampered yuppie kids leave them laying around

The quality time I spent with Mrs Azdak on Saturday morning

The furniture I moved before and after vaccuming the house

What I DID count as exercise:

The 45 minutes on the stairmaster that I did on Monday.

The 30 minutes on the cross trainer and weight training I did on Tuesday

The 30 minute run I did on Wednesday

The 30 minutes on the cross trainer and weight training I did on Thursday

The 60 minute run I did on Friday

The 30 minute interval workout I did on Saturday.

FWIW, that's how I keep track.

MLgarcia3

nice! Unless it's actual exercise, I don't count it either..

chic243

good job and you shouldn't cleaning vacuuming moving frnitue all that stuff thats not exercise no matter what show says exercise is intense physical involvement not lets do the garbage or water the plants that is delusional

AnniePanny

lol, gotta love the quality time exercises

chrisdavey

you don't count golf? The course I play at is crazy hilly and I don't have a buggy. It is definitely considered exercise for me :P

dobergfell

I am curious, at what level do you have your "Normal daily activities" setting? My daily activity is set to sedentary because of my low physical activity lifestyle and job. If I take the dog for a walk, doesn't that burn more calories than sitting in front of a computer screen? Should I NOT be counting those calories?

In my opinion, if you have your settings established appropriately on MFP, you should count any physical activity that is "out of the norm".

What does anyone else think?

Azdak

you don't count golf? The course I play at is crazy hilly and I don't have a buggy. It is definitely considered exercise for me :P

Too much starting and stopping. If I am not waiting, I can walk 18 holes in under 3 hr easily. But since I rarely get my heart rate above 100, no I don't consider it exercise--it's just casual activity.

Azdak

I am curious, at what level do you have your "Normal daily activities" setting? My daily activity is set to sedentary because of my low physical activity lifestyle and job. If I take the dog for a walk, doesn't that burn more calories than sitting in front of a computer screen? Should I NOT be counting those calories?

In my opinion, if you have your settings established appropriately on MFP, you should count any physical activity that is "out of the norm".

What does anyone else think?

People tend to be selective about tracking their activities. They remember every second of possible "exertion" but forget the hours they spend doing essentially nothing.

The activity settings are averages. That means, over time, the odd day of extra motion will be balanced out by the long stretches where you are, from a physiological standpoint, essentially inert. Not to mention that a number of studies have shown that, after doing extra activity (housework, yardwork, etc) people tend to *decrease* their casual activity in the hours afterward, so it is often a wash. But, again, most people don't pay attention to that part of the equation.

And if the activities are already part of your routine, then they most likely are already part of your equilibrium.

Again, this argument comes up all the time, and there is no completely right or wrong answer. I am just trying to add another perspective.

abyt42

I tend to count as exercise activities where I'm focused on making myself be more fit. I admit I counted moving, however...it's definitely an unusually physical activity for me. But I don't count the 3/4 mile of walking I do during the work day, since it's piecemeal, and slow.

Usually, for me, I have to change clothes before it's a workout.... if it's just my normal day, it's what I was doing when I got big!

fitgirl4life

Totally agree with this post! Exercise means I change clothes, put on my HRM, and focus on getting my heart rate up. I I don't count anything that doesn't make me get into at least "fat burning zone".

I also don't count "shopping", "cleaning", "standing" or "working" as exercise. I did those things before and still got fat.

End6ame

The 500-1000lbs of weight plates and dumbbells I have to pick up off the floor of the weight room every day at work after the pampered yuppie kids leave them laying around

I feel your pain here.

WalkingGirl1985

I count that as physical labor..not exercise but it is good in some way...you are using those muscles.

jam3114

Yeah totally with you ...........all the 'normal' activity shouldn't be taken into account but once I get the running gear on & come back with a red face from 'trying' to run 4 miles I know those are the calories I really earned & deserve !!!

MissingMinnesota

I agree with all but the walking the dog which really depends on the type of dog. I used to have St Benard/Huskys and walking them was not a slow walk and it was on our hilly back road so more like hiking but If say I was walking Yorkie around the block a couple times then maybe I wouldn't count that.

I see people that include cleaning and what not and I wonder how dirty their house is if it takes that much energy to clean it. :huh:

aprilgicker

You always have some good stuff for your post. I think being your client would be very effective.

jessmomof3

Yep, I agree!! I walk at least 2-3 miles on most nights w/ my dh and girls around our neighborhood and keep active all day. I get in plenty of *planned* exercise, so I just count that as a *bonus*, not towards my MFP cals burned. Unless it's my *rest* day and I might go over my cals, then I'll add in the walk. :laugh: It all evens out.

Find what works for you, but I do lots of hauling laundry and cleaning with 3 kids and I would never count is as *exercise*. Unless maybe I were a house keeper and cleaning houses for hours every day...

H_82

I agree. If I'm not sweating, I don't count it....I figure it's just a bonus.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

ChubbieTubbie

I don't count a lot of things I do like cleaning and whatnot--it comes with the territory of having kids!, but I spend the majority of my time on my butt anyway in front of a computer screen, sitting with the kids and helping with homework, rocking a baby to sleep. Aside from straightening up, cooking dinner and vacuuming every night, I rarely do anything besides sit on the floor and play cars with my boys and watch TV and work behind a desk where I don't get up all day long. I don't count time where I stand in the window and watch my kid do gymnastics, nor do I count it when I'm riding bikes with her, since it's going so slow that it doesn't amount to much, but I do count walking since it's out of the norm for me and my heart rate gets into the target zone even when I'm not power walking. I think if I'm getting upwards of 75% of my HR, I should be allowed to count it. It's not something that I do very often, and it's something that I work at for an hour as part of my exercise routine. Now I'm not entirely sure I should be counting it.

missjeannemarie

IMHO I think adding most of the things you do that you don't think are exercises should be counted I believe that is one of the beauties of MFP and when I go for a walk or mow my lawn and get to count the calories that is awesome. Good luck Azdak -

sjaudio

I'm of the opinion, that the "little things" are just part of your lifestyle. If I added every time that I got up off of my couch as exercise, I'd be fooling myself. I'll count walks if I'm out for a long time or going with the intent of exercising, but walking to the corner grocery coffee shop is not exercise. Just moving my frame a hundred yards is not going to get me closer to my goal weight or improve my health. When your doctor suggest that you get X amount of hours of cardiovascular exercise a week, he (or she) doesn't mean standing up and shuffling around your house.

IsMollyReallyHungry

For me, I ususally do not count things I have to do anyways.

But I have a HRM and if I think it is going to be exertion I wear it and I log it on here according to my HRM. I tried it once for house cleaning and it did help me to keep moving to make it low intensity. I got much more did and in a shorter period of time. No stopping to watch TV, chit chat on the phone, etc, etc. I never even got the idea to count it until MFP. I now like wearing it for house work because it makes me to keep moving my body to stay over 100. This works for me and I don't feel guilty logging it then.

It seems to work for some of my MFP friends. They are losing weight, but I am not sure how many eat these calories.

I still don't count it as my workout but it helps on weekends when I tend not to workout but one day if that.

pinbotchick

I truly admire you and all that you have achieved. When I started on MFP, I logged a sedentary lifestyle and will admit that logging every activity really helped me do more. For people starting this lifestyle change, I think it's fine to log all the activities. The more I did, the more I felt better about myself and the more I would cont to do.

Now that I've been here a year and lost 55 pounds, I'm more realistic. I am more active and have changed my profile to lightly active. I realize that working out with my clients, short walks and shopping are not great energy expenditures. I figure these things are included in my upgraded daily energy expenditure to lightly active. But, I really needed those boosts when I first started here.

What each person logs needs to be realistic and help motivate themselves is different based on their weight and self confidence. The more out of shape you are, the more motivation you may need, thus, you may need to log more tasks... Please keep this in mind as advice is dispersed here.

I hope that everyone is successful in there endeavors!!!

Azdak

I truly admire you and all that you have achieved. When I started on MFP, I logged a sedentary lifestyle and will admit that logging every activity really helped me do more. For people starting this lifestyle change, I think it's fine to log all the activities. The more I did, the more I felt better about myself and the more I would cont to do.

Now that I've been here a year and lost 55 pounds, I'm more realistic. I am more active and have changed my profile to lightly active. I realize that working out with my clients, short walks and shopping are not great energy expenditures. I figure these things are included in my upgraded daily energy expenditure to lightly active. But, I really needed those boosts when I first started here.

What each person logs needs to be realistic and help motivate themselves is different based on their weight and self confidence. The more out of shape you are, the more motivation you may need, thus, you may need to log more tasks... Please keep this in mind as advice is dispersed here.

I hope that everyone is successful in there endeavors!!!

That's a good perspective. Thanks for adding that. I get concerned sometimes that people are mistakenly thinking they are doing more than they are, but you gave it a new angle.

muth3rluvx2

I truly admire you and all that you have achieved. When I started on MFP, I logged a sedentary lifestyle and will admit that logging every activity really helped me do more. For people starting this lifestyle change, I think it's fine to log all the activities. The more I did, the more I felt better about myself and the more I would cont to do.

Now that I've been here a year and lost 55 pounds, I'm more realistic. I am more active and have changed my profile to lightly active. I realize that working out with my clients, short walks and shopping are not great energy expenditures. I figure these things are included in my upgraded daily energy expenditure to lightly active. But, I really needed those boosts when I first started here.

What each person logs needs to be realistic and help motivate themselves is different based on their weight and self confidence. The more out of shape you are, the more motivation you may need, thus, you may need to log more tasks... Please keep this in mind as advice is dispersed here.

I hope that everyone is successful in there endeavors!!!

That's a good perspective. Thanks for adding that. I get concerned sometimes that people are mistakenly thinking they are doing more than they are, but you gave it a new angle.

Indeed -this is extremely well said and I think the perspective many have been reaching for when logging all those activities that others argue against adding. Personally, I tend to log something as exercise if I'm doing it for more than 2 hours solid - even household chores. I can work up quite a sweat, depending on what I'm doing. Other things like laundry involves alot of lifting, carrying, bending, hauling AND stairs. I won't count a load or two or three done throughout the day but if it's on going and pretty much non-stop, then yes - I add it. I don't do laundry like that every day. But generally, work-outs are workouts and everything else is everything else. Once in a while, like said above, if I'm feeling really down about things, I might put something "normal" in just to feel better about my accomplishments over the course of the day or week.

PoiBoyBlue

I spent almost 8 hours cleaning my house this past week. After I sat down, when I was finished, out of breath and sweating I thought "Wait... this may not have been substantial if it was an hour, but I had to have burned something in 8 hrs. Did I?" And looked it up. I burned over 1000 calories, not counting what I burned from having to move the furniture around, according to MFP.

I relaized the same after my own bit of "Quality Time," as my fiancee and I aren't lightweights in that department...

it comes to a point where you have to realize that doing anything other than resting burns extra calories, and they can be counted if you do it long enough. I would say if you do anything for more than 5 minutes at a time it's burned a decent enough amount to be thought of as exercise. Cooking in the kitchen, for an hour, for example, is still light activity that will have burned at least 50 calories