Opinion Needed for exercise calories

shopewell70

Just wondering if y'all would offer your opinion. First off, I am not one to enter exercise as cleaning house, washing clothes, or even mowing the lawn. But, ever since yesterday around 3 p.m. I have moved furniture in and out of every room in my house to include vacumning floors, ceiling fans, baseboards, and then shampooing the carpet and eventually moving all the furniture back. This went on for 6 rooms and the upstairs bonus rooms. I didnt get to workout today because I just got done about an hour ago. So lets figure 3pm till about 11pm last night (8hrs) and then today from 9:30 till 8pm (10.5 hrs). So thats a total of 18.5 hours. Question is: Would it be realistic to enter this as exercise for today or just leave it alone? I dont want to feel like I am trying to take shortcuts, because Im not and I wont. So what do I do?, what would you do?
Thanks for all the help and support.

lamilli09

When it comes to cleaning/cooking/moving furniture/dancing, I try to not include those calories in my daily log. But if I feel the need to log some exercise and I do these sorts of activities on a day when I don't go to the gym, my general rule of thumb is to log about 1 hour for every 3-5 hours of activity. I hope this helps

shopewell70

Thats a good idea. I didnt think about logging only a percentage of it. And I do agree with you, I dont usually log these kinds of activities, but moving all the furniture by yourself and shampooing the entire house by yourself, I figured I could justify some of it this one time. But I really do like your idea.....thanks

Rosered23

So I think it is sad that people feel that activities burning calories for people, shouldn't count and that only exercise at a gym is the only way to burn calories. That is a misconception. It does not motivate people to try, and can make it very intimidating for beginners in weight loss and lifestyle change. It is so wrong to imply that when there are plenty of activities that can be done every day, at home, not out of the ordinary, can make a huge difference in someone's life. Physical activity is physical activity, going from sedentary to physically active is a good thing! So if you are at home: do silly dancing with your 3 year old for 20 minutes, or scrubbed your walls. Good for YOU! Not only is your house clean, and you are spending time with your child, but you are learning that physical activity and calorie intake are connected. This leads to healthier choices and yes then maybe even the gym. Encourage your friends, these are steps in learning a healthier lifestyle.

littleworm23

I'm not sure how to break that down for exercise but I just wanted to say HOLY CRAP!! That is a lot of work and it would not be cheating or taking short cuts at all to count that as exercise because that is exactly what it was. I can't imagine how sore you must be.

usc2626

You can get a fitbit it will help with tthings like that, not so much the lifting but all the moving around you did. It keeps track of all the walking, steps climb and factors in the calories burned. Its not very expensive and also syncs with MFP to your daly diary.

kayhatlen

Hi! I got to wondering after reading your post about other physical activities counting as exercise. I found a link for you.

http://www.fitday.com/webfit/burned/calories_burned_Home_activities.html

You can put your weight, height, age and gender in to figure calories per hour burned by doing all kinds of different daily work. On this site the only thing I've found so far was snow shoveling. Which I did count as exercise because it is often very hard physical work. After an hour of non-stop snow shoveling during a bad storm I am much more tired than after going to the gym. So in my opinion it counts. My trainer agreed that it is a good/difficult workout. Hope this helps!