Logging as a chef

PoorGirlEatingHealthy

So i am going to try logging myself as lightly active or active starting Monday. What would you say a person who prepares food all day is...my arms are constantly in motion and i walk lots of little steps all day..but the space i work in in small so I'm not like walking great strides delivering food. I stick mostly to the food prep areas. Currently i have myself as sedentary as I mostly sit on my rear end at home and log my morning workout and time at work as exercise but the cal burned count seems a bit high...also I can't afford am HRM but if I did splurge and get one it would prob have to be under $50 and I am skeptical of how good they would work.

jenbusick

If you work on your feet, I would put "lightly active" as your activity level and not log work separately.

melissamauney

I would put active.

blakgarnet

a pedometer might be a good investment - counts your sets since you're not walking distances. they're not too expensive.

LadyPersia

Food preparation is on the list under cardio. I would get an HRM and track your daily burn and then figure out your goal of what you need in order to loose or maintain your healthy lifestyle.

SCC88

My fella is a head chef and I would say he was very active. He works 9 hours in all that heat, running around grabbing things out of fridges, stocking back up and trying to wash up and cook at the same time lol. I put a pedometer on him once and it reached over 3000 steps in 3 hours before he accidently nudged the reset button :grumble:

On another note, my HRM came in the post this morning ... it works as I can imagine every other one does. Brand new and boxed from eBay for £5. Made by Target|Fitness?!?! My pedometer was about 99p :bigsmile:

PoorGirlEatingHealthy

my pedometer sucks a little...unless i am full on walking huge strides it doesn't seem to count them

iamhealingmyself

Yes if you're in confined spaces and taking mostly side steps they won't track right on a pedometer. That relies on full on hip motion to pivot the counter. Do you not have a friend or family member who has a HRM you could maybe borrow for a day or two and get an idea of what you're burning? Mine was $85 but I've seen other's find them for as low as $60 or so online. I'd say keep shopping around. You might even find someone here who has upgraded to another model and would be willing to sell it more reasonably.

If you have been logging work as an exercise you have an idea of what you calories burned are, even if the number is off. I would say change your setting to lightly active and compare what the increase is. You may even have to go up to the next level to make it about even. You can always cancel the change if the numbers are way off. If you've been logging work as exercise for some time, take an average of what you logged divided by the number of days you logged. This will give you a general idea of what you're burning at work without being more over or under.

Consider too where do you spend most of your awake time - at work or at home (including weekend time)? If work, then I would consider increasing your activity level, if it's at home, then I would stick to logging your work hours as exercise. Again, this is all assuming that the numbers from the two options are similar. You want to make this easier on yourself, not harder. The only advantage to increasing your daily limit is to prevent you from having a deficit from logging exercise. That would help you with regards to the confusion you experience over the net carbs.

There's no doubt that working in the heat will raise your metabolism even if you're standing still, but how far and how often you're moving around is a factor too. I would think a place like McDonalds or BK would be considered very lightly active if not sedentary only because of how they have the stations setup. Everything is within arms reach for the most part. However, most restaurants are not that efficient and you often have to walk through the dish station to get to the freezers and storage area, even if your line is relatively compact. It's also a high stress environment and I'm sure that will have an impact on your hear rate too. If you have a smart phone, you could get an app called Instant Heart Rate Monitor which uses your camera lens to detect your heart rate. This will give you and idea of your rate over the course of the time you work and you can see if it's elevated and how much. If you're not at a fat burn or cardio level, it might not benefit you to even worry about the calories burned at work but if it's up there on average most of the day, I'd definitely log your work as exercise or up your activity level.

l3ugjuice

If you are considering a HRM or pedometer or something, I'd recommend saving some money and just buy a Gowear Fit...even if it takes you a little while. Much more expensive, unfortunately, but also much more accurate & useful. In my opinion anyway, but I do better when I can obsess over things...

I was at about 305 in January, did diet and exercise down to around 185 by the end of March. Joined this site & bought a Fit last month, dropped another 21 pounds (actually more than that, I was this >< close to breaking 260 last night...but it wasnt my weigh in day. So hopefully next week will be good too). Just seems easier for me to keep to my goals when I remove the guesswork from how many calories I'm burning every day, and the pedometer/accelerometer/HRM's I was using before just buying a FIT were not very accurate.