Tracking regular daily activities as exercise?

Shell521

So I noticed a lot of people track their daily activities in their exercise area, like laundry, cleaning, cooking etc. I personally have not because to me, these are things I do every day & if they were not helping me lose weight before, why am i going to track them? I feel like it would almost give me a false sense of calories burned & I would then think I have more to eat back? Am i making sense lol?

I'm just curious as to how many people add stuff like that into their diary because I see a lot of people doing it & MFP obviously has numbers logged for these activities. All this time I have only been tracking my actual workouts. I can see burning calories if you are vigorously cleaning & scrubbing floors on your hands and knees for example, but just my daily dusting, laundry folding etc. I don't know if its worth tracking or not?

stacygeorge

I agree. I only log actual workouts.

spcopps

I only log my workouts. Like you I don't bother with the "daily" chore logging. I do however log if I am on a trip all day with all walking such as touring.

Tamstar1985

i, personally, do not do this. i frequently clean like a madwoman, wash clothes by hand, lug huge bags of stuff up and down the six flights of stairs to my apartment... i just consider these incidental calories burned i ONLY log purposeful exercise.

bhb301

My theory is it didn't make me thin before and it won't now

amymeenieminymo

It's not, I would only track that stuff if it's hardcore cleaning that I wouldn't normally do. For example, last weekend I cleaned out our "junk room". It was a lot of heavy lifting, trips up and down the basement stairs and I was sweating, so I logged it. I wouldn't log just a regular cleaning.

redxmasqueen

I only log my actual exercise.

albayin

Well cleaning n laundry DOES burn calories...just a fact. Maybe not 600 but some

I agree. When tracking input/output, I think it makes sense to add them.

abbigail_r

Well as I was reading about calorie intake the other day I found that you should not because the alotted calories you begin with cover those activities already. It says basic movement throughout the day you do on a regular basis is why you need to eat say 1200 calories to begin with. Just like if you workout you eat them back.

emd0019

I agree with most everybody in that I only count my actual workouts

Becky011

I say to each their own. If it works for you great! If not also great it could be encouragin to see the cals burnt, who knows.
it's all about doing what works for you to lose weight . Itry not to pick on anybody because I know my way wouldn't necessarily work for them either.

albayin

Well as I was reading about calorie intake the other day I found that you should not because the alotted calories you begin with cover those activities already. It says basic movement throughout the day you do on a regular basis is why you need to eat say 1200 calories to begin with. Just like if you workout you eat them back.

Now the question is what activities should be considered as "basic movements"?

precious71701

I walk around my classroom alot..and up and down the stairs at least 4 to 5 times a day...I log this as about 15 min of walking a slow pace...only 56 calories burned...I don't log the other stuff like cooking or cleaning etc...I too do not want to be thrown off..I probably will be able to tell more about it by the amount of weight I lose from week to week...I just joined, so Im gonna give it some time...

sweetnshy

I log them only if it's something out of the ordinary. Like a few weeks ago I was stuck cleaning out a warehouse...normally I sit at at desk, so it was something different for me so I logged it. Well only like 1/4 of it :P

sheilamo

I consider that stuff a given. I'm only counting what I do extra!

Shell521

I'm just wondering if I have been doing it wrong lol! I mean I guess there really is no right or wrong for this since everyone has different goals, bodies & amount of exercise their capable of doing. Just trying to see what most people are tracking, because everything technically burns calories, breathing, sleeping, eating etc. but I don't track them because its stuff that I do daily.

Coramae09

today i wore my hrm while i cleaned my house and i burnt 950 cals in 3 1/2 hrs.....though when i clean i crank up the radio and dance along as i scrub lol! i have never logged it before but wearing my hrm proved that you do burn quite a bit if you make it more of a work out than just a regular picking up the house. to each there own i guess do whats right for you

kcphilly

I've only logged cleaning once so far and that was for hardcore cleaning of all my floors which takes about 2 hours, wears me out, and basically took up my time for regular exercise. Other than that I think if it doesn't raise my HR up into "the zone" it doesn't count.

reese66

I say to each their own. If it works for you great! If not also great it could be encouragin to see the cals burnt, who knows.
it's all about doing what works for you to lose weight . Itry not to pick on anybody because I know my way wouldn't necessarily work for them either.

I agree with you, to each their own.

MettleForger

It take me at least 10 minutes of intense exercise to get my heart rate up and another 5 or so to start sweating. If I am doing long distance cardio it takes about twice that long. I dont log workouts (even if they are real ones) unless I break a sweat. I do cheat however and do enough cardio to break a sweat (and more usually), then I will do intense calisthenics and/or weight lifting and count both. Since my heart rate is up, I can keep it up and even if I only lift for 5-10 minutes it will continue to burn calories.

I would like to say that many of the calorie counts are way high! I played softball for 1.5 hours. It was pretty leisurely, because it was softball! the tool said I burned 540 calories - which is way off. 540 calories is 45 minutes of leg burning uphill biking, not 90 of softball. I feel like counting calories doing the laundry would be detrimental to a persons goals, because the tool is most definitely overcounting the calories burned to do so. I do my laundry all the time, it is probably the same amount of calories as simply standing for the same amount of time.

My apologies for anyone doing an entire football team's laundry or something like that, because you should log that if thats the kind of laundry activity you are doing!

lovingbears2

If it is just regular daily activity, I figure that was included in my original sign-in for my activity level ( i.e. sedentary, moderately active, etc). If I am doing extra activity that isn't my "norm", then I will count it, but don't necessarily add back in the calories burned and eat them unless it ended up turning into a non-traditional "workout",after all. ( i.e. went out to garden to pull some weeds and plant, and got extra motivated while there ,and find myself 3 hours later still hauling bags of pulled weeds and goodness knows what to the trash!.) If I have a full exercise workout, then , yes, absolutely I would log it in, and add to my food calories needed to eat for the day if necessary. Does that make sense?:huh: