Activity level?

mrsmcmo

I am a stay at home mom, and I do a fair amount of housework, playing with kids, etc. I have my activity level set to 'lightly active', since although I am on the go a lot (errands, etc.) I don't know if I consider that being seriously active (although I am toting a 25lb toddler most of the time!). Does it sound like my activity level is the proper one? Also, I have been running on the treadmill lately, so when I do that exercise I log it. But how much of my daily cleaning, and other household chores can be logged, if any? I'm just not sure how much activity is 'lightly active'. I hope this is making sense! Please let me know if there's anything I can clarify - I'd just like to be sure that I am eating the proper number of calories in regards to how active I am. Sometimes I am cleaning for a few hours, and sometimes only 45 minutes-1hr, it just depends.
Any input is appreciated!

kgeyser

I'm also a SAHM, and I always kept my calories set to lightly active and ate back a portion of my exercise calories when I was following the MFP method. I did not log any housework or chores as exercise. My reasoning was that these are tasks that are part of my daily life and my body has already adjusted to that activity level, so trying to sneak them in as exercise burns would throw off my numbers. If I was doing some heavy duty work like shoveling 8 inches of snow, I was ok with eating a little more that day, but I didn't give myself extra calories for deep cleaning the bathroom.

mrsmcmo

Ok, thanks for the input! For now I will just continue logging any extra exercise.