This CANT be right...

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tiffanyquincey
tiffanyquincey Posts: 107
in Fitness and Exercise
I've been cleaning house all day. I entered 3 hours of light cleaning in exercise, and it says I burned over 500 cals. That can't be right! Should I eat that back? Or only half? I don't trust that..

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  • meinco
    meinco Posts: 62 Member
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    I personally don't count normal daily activities like cleaning the house, washing the car, gardening ect... I just assume if I burn a little doing stuff like that, that it makes my deficit for the day even better.
  • BrentGetsFit
    BrentGetsFit Posts: 878 Member
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    To be frank I don't trust any MFP numbers. If I don't have my HRM or pedometer readings I don't log it. Found too many counts that were off for me :(
  • andreahanlon
    andreahanlon Posts: 263 Member
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    If you don't trust it, I would advise to only eat back calories if you need to due to hunger. If you don't feel hungry, then don't eat them. Using that policy tends to work for me!
  • yiffanarff
    yiffanarff Posts: 123 Member
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    It does seem kind of high, but remember, you burn calories being alive. If you were cleaning for 3 hours, you were probably on your feet that whole time, getting up and down, scrubbing, lifting mop buckets, etc? So you may have burned that much. Probably depends a lot on your height and weight, etc though. I don't tend to log things like cleaning/walking to the store/work etc. I figure I worked those calories into my activity level when I first signed up.
  • gtm124
    gtm124 Posts: 179
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    To be frank I don't trust any MFP numbers. If I don't have my HRM or pedometer readings I don't log it. Found too many counts that were off for me :(

    Ditto for me.
  • hellokatee
    hellokatee Posts: 211 Member
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    I would not log it at all. If I know that I'm going to be doing VIGOROUS cleaning I put my HRM on.... But other then that I count it as fairly normal daily activity. Not to mention that practically ALL of MFPs exercise calories are off.
  • layasideEVERYweight
    layasideEVERYweight Posts: 17
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    if your heart rate stayed normal the whole time and you do it every day and have stayed the same...don't log it. well, i wouldn't...
  • Mads1997
    Mads1997 Posts: 1,494 Member
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    I personally don't count normal daily activities like cleaning the house, washing the car, gardening ect... I just assume if I burn a little doing stuff like that, that it makes my deficit for the day even better.

    Agree with this^^
  • sierracanbe
    sierracanbe Posts: 60
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    i've found mfp to be very generous with calories burned, & it can negatively affect your progress since you're not burning as much as you're being led to believe.
    so, when in doubt, i use this website to verify the amount of calories i've burned:
    http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

    hope it help .6_6

    also, i don't typically enter housework either... unless it's vigorous enough to break a sweat.
  • TAWoody
    TAWoody Posts: 261 Member
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    I've been cleaning house all day. I entered 3 hours of light cleaning in exercise, and it says I burned over 500 cals. That can't be right! Should I eat that back? Or only half? I don't trust that..

    That actually sounds about right. That's only 165 calories an hour, not very much. And it would take into consideration that you'd be walking around, doing some light lifting, bending over a lot, using your legs and glutes a lot. Gardening is very similar in it's calorie burn for the same reasons. Hell, I'm tired after vacuuming all 3 floors and hauling the Dyson up and down 2 flights of stairs. I'd better be burning at least 165 calories an hour.
  • CraigIW
    CraigIW Posts: 176
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    If you don't trust it, I would advise to only eat back calories if you need to due to hunger. If you don't feel hungry, then don't eat them. Using that policy tends to work for me!

    Same here. If you're not hungry, why on earth would you eat, especially if you're trying to lose weight?
  • tiffanyquincey
    tiffanyquincey Posts: 107
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    I was working pretty hard I suppose. Moving furniture, scrubbing floors. I definitely broke a sweat. It wasn't really normal daily cleaning I pretty much deep cleaned the entire apt. I actually cleaned about 5 hours straight (thank goodness for coffee!) although I only put in 3. I'm probably just gonna eat half of them back just in case
  • tiffanyquincey
    tiffanyquincey Posts: 107
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    If you don't trust it, I would advise to only eat back calories if you need to due to hunger. If you don't feel hungry, then don't eat them. Using that policy tends to work for me!

    Same here. If you're not hungry, why on earth would you eat, especially if you're trying to lose weight?

    From what I understand we're supposed to eat our exercise calories back to avoid "starvation mode". I'm not entirely sure if its true so I usually just eat half of them back, but I'm already at 1200 per day so I don't want my net calories to get too low.

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