Exercise Log Question

PositivePower

:happy: Hey MFP's - I hate to see my MFP's cheating themselves by logging in house cleaning....unless you are scrubbing the floor of a fixer upper or digging ditches gardening. I will only count work outs like cycling, running, gym class, hiking.... am I wrong???? Just wondering

I just bought myself a heart monitor and I am ready to REALLY burn some calories. I'm losing this time for GOOD:bigsmile:

Keep working hard MFP's

christine24t

in my opinion, you are right. but some people judge that as exercise. I think that is every day activity.

Becky1971

Use your heart monitor, and sweep and mop, or vacuum, or clean for an hour and see what you come up with. I thought the same thing and was curious, then when I got a monitor and checked it, I cleaned for 60,. and burned between 3 and 4 hundred cals. I still don't add it when I do clean. But if it was something I did daily for several hours, then I would change my activity level instead.

BethGorton

Some people believe it is cheating, others believe that because they got their heart rate up doing these things, that they should log it.

Personally, I don't log it. Each to their own I say.

kimbux

I think it depends on your 'normal', daily routine. I have a lady who cleans my house... but she has been sick. So, when I have to clean the house myself, I count it because it's not something I do everyday/week.

jlowensby

Whatever it takes to get people motivated and moving...if they want to log their housecleaning as exercise, let them...if you do clean for a good amount of time, a good amount of calories are burned.

Once they see that they ARE burning calories this may get them motivated to do more!! Sometimes that is all the time I have for is cleaning....so hell yeah I am going to log it.

But to each their own

melkadee

I have not included cleaning yet. I plan to get a HRM soon. I am excited to find out what a difference cleaning really makes!:happy:

Ely82010

If their profile is set as "sedentary," then in my opinion is OK to count those activites as extra calories burned.

I have set my profile as "light active" so I only log gardening (if more than one hr and I only log 1/2 the time) and exercise activities done at the gym, the pool, or at home when I workout with a DVD, and walking.

SandyF923

Hi, I don't think that logging housework under exercise is cheating at all. Depending on your height and weight you can burn quite a few calories doing housework. I don't know of anyone who after spending a few hours cleaning their house, that didn't need to sit down and take a breather. You're burning calories and not just sitting around. I don't think we should discourage folks in any way as they try to lose weight. If anyone is interested you can check out www.healthstatus.com. There are several tools that you can use including "calories burned"; and you can find out based on your weight, how many calories your burned doing any of the list of activities. If you're a person that runs 5 miles a day, does 2 hours of weight training and another hour of cardio, then burning 200 or so calories cleaning your house might not have the same impact as someone who might be struggling to get in 20 minutes of exercise 3 times per week. Your lifestyle will dictate the benefits of whatever activities you engage in.

PositivePower

Thanks for your views - your right, everyone is different and if they are motivated by a good house cleaning that's great. Not to mention getting the heart rate up and a clean house at the end.

I'm still going to not count it and have it be a bonus, just like parking the car far from the store and walking, taking the extra time and steps to put the cart away etc.

Keep moving!!!