Logging daily activities?

tpittsley77

First I would like to start this post by qualifying it with....I am just asking questions so don't get all defensive and rude. I am not judging anyone here! Trying to educate myself.

I see people logging daily activities, like cleaning, carrying laundry, carrying a baby. Doesn't mfp already account for daily calories burned? So isn't someone that logs those activities doing themselves a disservice by counting them towards cardio? Seems like an easy way to pump up your diary and convince yourself you can eat more. Unless of course, you never clean your house, carry laundry, carry your baby, etc and these truly are new activities to you. I clean my house, carry laundry up and down stairs daily, carry my 5 month old quite a bit. I also work 9 hours a day, seven of which is walking around a nursing home and kitchen. But I am still fat, which is why I am using this site. If I loggd all that as extra calories burned, and ate to make up those calories, wouldn't I be just as fat as I was before starting on mfp?

graebnerkm15

I really think it depends on how you set your activity level or how much you do those things.
For example: if you carry your child around the zoo that day for 2 1/2 hours I think that would be something "log worthy," especially if your lifestyle is set at sedentary on MFP.
Or, if you lug 10 loads of laundry up and down 3 flights of stairs once a week I think that would totally count as cardio!
To each their own, IMO. I waitress 5 days a week and have a desk job 4 days a week and I don't log my waitressing but I'm the "mildly active," or whatever it's called. If I work a particularly difficult shift or do lots of extra cleaning at work I will log it.

therealangd

If you set your activity level to sedentary, the difference between being in a coma and daily activities for most women is about 200 calories. BMR x 1.2 = TDEE.

It has nothing to do with NEW activities. It has to do with activities that are outside of a "sedentary" level. Outside of that extra 200 or so calories.

Most people became fat because they ate 3 or 4000 calories a day. Not because they cleaned their house.

JoolieW68

If the activity is something I do during the normal course of my day, like doing dishes or sweeping, then no, I don't log it. But if I do a marathon cleaning session, like vacuuming every square inch of my house (basement, ground floor, upstairs, furniture, etc), then I will log it since it's not something I do every day.

salxtai

Daily / everyday-life activities should go towards determining your activity level.

If you're hard labour / cleaning your house every day etc, then setting your level as "very active" is more accurate than logging housework.

cramernh

For me... the only thing I would log for things you mentioned, would be my housework required a full-body, rigorous workout - like Spring Cleaning. That requires moving furniture, carrying furniture, rearranging furniture, hearty scrubbing of floors and walls, etc...

Regular housework - nope... because that is generally a normal part of the day.

We just moved into a new apartment this past weekend (March 30th-March 31st) going from a two floor condex to an entire second floor apartment (both six room dwellings). Thats carrying heavy boxes, hauling furniture, lugging rolled-up carpet... loading the vehicles. Then doing it all over again but unloading and carrying up two flights of stairs. Then moving everything around within the new home. You betcha Im counting that because it doesnt happen everyday (THANK GAWD!) and even today, I am still feeling my core muscles are still affected by the move.

I dont think people are 'seeing' the true reality of what is considered day-to-day (the norm) versus the actual act of feeling muscles ache/sweating profusely due to a Spring-cleaning project or moving.

I do think though, the best factor to see if anything is truly affecting you caloric wise is to be wearing an HRM to review heart rate and caloric burn. I definitely wouldnt rely on common household cleaning and MFP values..

Givemewings

If you set your activity level to sedentary, the difference between being in a coma and daily activities for most women is about 200 calories. BMR x 1.2 = TDEE.

It has nothing to do with NEW activities. It has to do with activities that are outside of a "sedentary" level. Outside of that extra 200 or so calories.

Most people became fat because they ate 3 or 4000 calories a day. Not because they cleaned their house.

this^^^^

kindra3434

That's a good point...I don't log exercise unless its a sustained, heart pumping burn. Isn't that why they calculate calories by how active you are? I chose sedentary because im not active. Now if I was on my feet all day busy being mom and cleaning than I would have chose active. Hence the reason for the calorie limits.

blv0267

I do log cleaning, shoveling and yard work as part of daily activities. Simply because these are things I don't do everyday. For example, this weekend I moved brush around for burning for about 2 hours. This was labor intensive, got my heart rate up and got me sweating. I used this as my exercise.

My rule of thumb is to log it if it's something I don't do everyday and gets my heart beating fast.

tpittsley77

Thank you everyone. I see some people logging like 20 minutes cleaning every day. That is a daily activity. I agree that moving, spring cleaning, carrying a baby around a zoo, stuff that you do not do daily, should be logged. I personally am only logging actual exercise. The things I did on a daily basis did not prevent me from being fat in the first place.

Sepheara

If the activity is something I do during the normal course of my day, like doing dishes or sweeping, then no, I don't log it. But if I do a marathon cleaning session, like vacuuming every square inch of my house (basement, ground floor, upstairs, furniture, etc), then I will log it since it's not something I do every day.

^^^^^^ This.
I do laundry and dishes and things every day, but we're moving in a few months so I'm packing boxes and hauling them around, and doing extra deep cleaning so on days I do more then usual I log it. Or if I steam my floors or something (steamers full of water are heavy as CRAP, and you have to move them sooo slow my arms feel like they're gonna fall off!), I do try to adjust though. if I clean for 2 hours, then maybe I log 1. Because I probably took a break or my heart rate wasn't up the whole time or something.
*edit to add*
I have a lightly active job but I have it set as sedentary because sometimes work is slow and theres less to do so I'm sedentary, but some days are busy and I move a lot, so I just leave it at sedentary.

fozzie500

personally i don't log anything unless it's excercise,but my exercise level is quite high.
i classed myself as lightly active because i am stood up for most of the day in my job. i walk the dog once a day but don't log it.
it is very much each to there own though,if it works and your losing weight,i say log whatever,just keep moving and making good food choices.

Abigaillee15

Oh good question!! I'm a college student and walk everywhere on campus, but when I'm not walking I'm sitting on my butt studying for hours on end! What kind of lifestyle do y'all think that is?

Also, I live up a giant hill. I usually take the bus back home, but on nice days I walk (it's a really, REALLY big hill). Should I could that as exercise? I am always winded afterwards and with a backpack full of books I definitely burn some calories!


What do y'all think?? Message/add me if you want!

DellG85

I clean daily obv (I have two kids under seven, a hubs who thinks he's 7 and a black lab. Really, I have no choice lol) and I cant see the point in logging those cals. My activity level is set to "lightly active" as I spend most days running about being a mam so I only log cals burned cleaning when Im doing the more vigorous stuff, like scrubbing the yard or floors etc. Even then though, I log it as "light" cleaning as for my weight, MFP massively over estimates cals x

Sepheara

Oh good question!! I'm a college student and walk everywhere on campus, but when I'm not walking I'm sitting on my butt studying for hours on end! What kind of lifestyle do y'all think that is?

Also, I live up a giant hill. I usually take the bus back home, but on nice days I walk (it's a really, REALLY big hill). Should I could that as exercise? I am always winded afterwards and with a backpack full of books I definitely burn some calories!


What do y'all think?? Message/add me if you want!

I think if you're out of breath and working muscles thats definitly exercise! I would get a heart rate monitor watch (it's not as acurate as a chest strap but I wear one all day so when I do a lot of walking (sometimes I have to walk around washington dc for my job) I can keep a quick count of how many calories I burn or you can just log it in mfp as walking adn let it estimate for you.

walking is great for you

daves160

I would say to those people to not count that as exercise no matter what they set their activity level at. The reason being is even if you are doing heavy lifting you are not necessarily getting any cardio. You need to have your heart rate up to at least 110- 115 bpm minimum to consider it a cardio burn, or you really aren't burning that much more calories than just a slow leisurly walk.

Aerobic and anaerobic activity is what I would count as exercise.

kasgill

I also wanted to share something my friend who is a nutritionist explained to me since I was complaining about not losing any weight. I have been training for a half marathon and running 20-30 miles a week and my calorie goal was 1200 a day. I was logging my runs and the calories burned which on some days would total over 600 cals. My mistake was that I was then eating 1800 calories on a day like that because I thought that the 600 burned allowed me to eat that much more. I guess my point is that even if you log your activities and exercises it is not an automatic "ok" to eat away those burned calories. Of course it is important to fuel your body before and after strenuous exercises but the snack should be something small...not 600 calories worth I hope this helps at least helps somebody understand the benefits (or downsides) of logging activity on this site.

katysmelly

Daily / everyday-life activities should go towards determining your activity level.

If you're hard labour / cleaning your house every day etc, then setting your level as "very active" is more accurate than logging housework.

Why do you say that it is more accurate? It seems to me that it would be more accurate to set it to sedentary and then recording what you do?

hanky1

I'm set on sedentary. I only log workouts and cycling around town. sometimes walking if it's a decent distance. I would never record cleaning or daily activities. for me it's psychological - knowing that i log physical activity makes me more likely to do it in the first place (e.g. more likely to cycle instead of jumping in the car). however, cleaning is not something that i particularly want to encourage myself to do more of (lol) as i don't see it contributing massively to weight loss, and i don't think i could be accurate enough in calories burned anyway (don't own an HRM). i worry that if i started logging daily activities i would end up kidding myself as to how many calories i was using up.

hope that makes sense!

gsager

First I would like to start this post by qualifying it with....I am just asking questions so don't get all defensive and rude. I am not judging anyone here! Trying to educate myself.

I see people logging daily activities, like cleaning, carrying laundry, carrying a baby. Doesn't mfp already account for daily calories burned? So isn't someone that logs those activities doing themselves a disservice by counting them towards cardio? Seems like an easy way to pump up your diary and convince yourself you can eat more. Unless of course, you never clean your house, carry laundry, carry your baby, etc and these truly are new activities to you. I clean my house, carry laundry up and down stairs daily, carry my 5 month old quite a bit. I also work 9 hours a day, seven of which is walking around a nursing home and kitchen. But I am still fat, which is why I am using this site. If I loggd all that as extra calories burned, and ate to make up those calories, wouldn't I be just as fat as I was before starting on mfp?

If we set out activity level at sedentary it only accounts for breathing.

SteveZT

OP said:
I see people logging daily activities, like cleaning, carrying laundry, carrying a baby. Doesn't mfp already account for daily calories burned? So isn't someone that logs those activities doing themselves a disservice by counting them towards cardio? Seems like an easy way to pump up your diary and convince yourself you can eat more. Unless of course, you never clean your house, carry laundry, carry your baby, etc and these truly are new activities to you. I clean my house, carry laundry up and down stairs daily, carry my 5 month old quite a bit. I also work 9 hours a day, seven of which is walking around a nursing home and kitchen. But I am still fat, which is why I am using this site. If I loggd all that as extra calories burned, and ate to make up those calories, wouldn't I be just as fat as I was before starting on mfp?

=================

love your thinking , they are deluding themselves

avafrisbee

My activity level is set at sedentary. So I log certain activities as exercise, for example if I walk to the store instead of drive. I carry my baby all the time, but if I am playing with him by lifting him over my head and dancing about with him, I log that. I log massive cleaning like if I re-arrange furniture or I clean both bathrooms, kitchen and living room top to bottom and moping and scrubbing toilets and sinks and tubs etc. I cleaned out the closet a few weeks back and was at that and folding laundry for 5 hours so I logged that. Not a huge caloric burn but something out of the ordinary. Right after my son was born, I wasn't on MFP but I counted any movement as exercise because I couldn't stand up for more than a few minutes at a time, then an hour then a few hours. I had a c-section and the recovery was super hard for me. Some women say "I was back to normal in 2 weeks" well, I wish I was one of them but myself and two other ladies I know said it was 10-12 weeks before they felt they could do any moderate level exercise. Even my doctor and midwife told me cleaning was off the to do list for 8 weeks. So during this time I counted cleaning and walking around in my garden as exercise. Now I don't.

Breast feeding is also a daily activity but not accounted for in MFPs deficit so it is wise for nursing mothers to count this as well to help ensure she and her baby are getting proper nutrition.

Also there could be people on here that can't walk to the end of their driveway to pick up their mail without getting winded. For these people it is motivating to log anything that gets them moving.

Perhaps they are doing themselves a disservice, then when they ask on a forum "why am I not losing weight" and you look at their diary and they have eaten 600 calories over their goal and accounted for it with "10 minutes of drying dishes", "5 minutes making the bed", "15 minutes folding laundry", "10 minutes picking up child's room" and "20 minutes standing in shower" they will get their answer. But often times adults know what they are doing, if they are cheating themselves or not, if they really are getting a work out from "picking up the mail" or not so I just let it go until I see that one crazy post "I'm eating only 1200 calories and doing all this housework and have my activity level set to high even though I work a desk job, I'm actually very active but not losing". Even then, I am learning to let it go because there are plenty of people on here that can help them out.

katysmelly

First I would like to start this post by qualifying it with....I am just asking questions so don't get all defensive and rude. I am not judging anyone here! Trying to educate myself.

I see people logging daily activities, like cleaning, carrying laundry, carrying a baby. Doesn't mfp already account for daily calories burned? So isn't someone that logs those activities doing themselves a disservice by counting them towards cardio? Seems like an easy way to pump up your diary and convince yourself you can eat more. Unless of course, you never clean your house, carry laundry, carry your baby, etc and these truly are new activities to you. I clean my house, carry laundry up and down stairs daily, carry my 5 month old quite a bit. I also work 9 hours a day, seven of which is walking around a nursing home and kitchen. But I am still fat, which is why I am using this site. If I loggd all that as extra calories burned, and ate to make up those calories, wouldn't I be just as fat as I was before starting on mfp?

I think your question is totally reasonable, and it's one I've mulled over a lot.

Here's what I do:

I am a Stay-at-home-mom. I set my activity level to "sedentary." I figure I spend a lot of day sitting down, just like someone with an office job does. And, someone with an office job does do some housework when they get home. So, I set "sedentary" as my base.

I don't count a lot of my housework - I don't count preparing meals, doing general tidying in the evenings, etc. However, I do a session of intensive cleaning and I count that. I'll try to explain what I do as briefly as possible -

I make up a big to-do list of things to clean. I emphasize things that require a lot of movement (hoovering, cleaning baseboards, making beds) and leave off stuff like washing dishes - those get done at other times, anyway. I make the list deliberately inefficient/strenuous. For example, there are three beds upstairs. I'll put each bed on the list as a separate thing. The point is - I have to go back to the list to cross off one before going back up to make another bed. That's three trips up the stairs instead of one. I make the list so that I'm doing lots of separate trips up the stairs, breaking things up so that I have to go back to the list on the kitchen counter. When I do this session, I make a point of really hustling. I run up the steps two-at-a-time. I move furniture and clean things that probably don't even need to be cleaned. Does my sofa need to be moved for hoovering every day? No. But, I do it, anyway. :laugh: And, here's the final thing I do so that I can call it exercise: Before I cross anything off the list, I have to do a set of exercises like push-ups, crunches, squats, etc. I keep myself moving as quickly as safely/sanely possible and I'm frequently puffing a bit!

I set a stopwatch app on my phone and I go and run through the list as fast as I can. If I'm interrupted by the phone or doorbell or something, I'll pause the stopwatch until I can resume my routine.

I generally take about 90 minutes to two hours to get through the list.

When I'm all done, I go to a website that lists calories burned for various activities by weight and time. I calculate that. Then, I calculate the calories that I would have burned if I'd been sitting at my computer posting nonsense to MFP, and I subtract that. The difference I enter as calories burned.

I think this makes as much sense as putting on a low-impact aerobics DVD and exercising. It get my house really, really clean and it's not boring like dancing around my living room would be.

jreed1920

I have a Fitbit which logs my activity all day long so not sure how that would be different than people logging their daily activities in addition to "exercise" If you are working your plan based on TDEE everything you do falls into that number, no?

Having said that, Fitbit never gives me crazy high calorie burn numbers like I see in many of these logs like 500 calories for making dinner or something like that. I don't even get numbers that high when I am actually doing a workout like JM 30 Day Shred so not sure how MFP is accurately accounting for the cooking/cleaning calories.

Vegetablearian

I have set my profile as sedentary because 3 days a week I most certainly am, 2 days a week at work I am on my feet all day and I tend to log that as 1 or 2 hours cleaning light effort as thats closest to what it is, 1 day a week I am uni which is a 30 minute walk each way and I walk all dinner hour so I log that, on weekends I am on my feet a lot and I log cleaning , which in this cage involves 3 6ft animal hutches being scrubbed and 5 3ft animal cages being scrubbed as well as cleaning up the entire house and I then log about half the time only to account for over estimates.

It depends on your situation and how hard you clean because the 2 hours it takes to do the hutches and cages in super tiring and I am up and down stairs all the time with waste and fresh bedding and carrying the animals to the outside runs and back. I wouldnt log having a quick sweep up and doing the dishes ever haha that wont burn much at all.

I log ea sports active and my boxing ps3 game and I will log jogging when I start doing some.

I eat below my BMR on average so these things should be considered for me IMHO.

avafrisbee

Thank you everyone. I see some people logging like 20 minutes cleaning every day. That is a daily activity. I agree that moving, spring cleaning, carrying a baby around a zoo, stuff that you do not do daily, should be logged. I personally am only logging actual exercise. The things I did on a daily basis did not prevent me from being fat in the first place.

okay, logging 20 min cleaning EVERYDAY, that is deluding yourself. Unless this person is like 400lbs and on the verge of dying due to their life-style.

SteveZT

I also wanted to share something my friend who is a nutritionist explained to me since I was complaining about not losing any weight. I have been training for a half marathon and running 20-30 miles a week and my calorie goal was 1200 a day. I was logging my runs and the calories burned which on some days would total over 600 cals. My mistake was that I was then eating 1800 calories on a day like that because I thought that the 600 burned allowed me to eat that much more. I guess my point is that even if you log your activities and exercises it is not an automatic "ok" to eat away those burned calories. Of course it is important to fuel your body before and after strenuous exercises but the snack should be something small...not 600 calories worth I hope this helps at least helps somebody understand the benefits (or downsides) of logging activity on this site.

hi there,
there are lots of misconceptions about a need to eat back your burned calories/
Could you tell us what did your nutritionist ,as a qualified person, say about eating away your burned calories?

thanks

Paula21666

Now I am confused....according to the daily food log after I exercise it does add those calories to my daily caloric intake and since I do my exercise after work I am then strggling in the evening to take in 600-700 calories before bedtime because of the exercise adjustment. So my question is do I stick with my recommended 1200 calories only or do I make up the calories burned during exercise? Any help would be appreciated.

lhelgren

Yes, climbing that hill with your back pack should definitely be counted as exercise especially if you are breathing heavy by the time you get to the top. By the way, you look great.
Grandma Laura

UpEarly

For me... something in MFP doesn't add up correctly. I have a computer job and spend about nine hours a day sitting at my desk. I do an hour workout most days as soon as I get off work. In the evenings, after I make dinner and wash a few dishes, I spend most of the evening relaxing on the couch - watching movies or reading.

I think this classifies me as sedentary, right?

For sedentary, MFP has me on 1730 calories a day to *maintain* my weight. Once I add in my workout calories, I end up around 2230 (give or take, depending on my workout intensity) most days.

I recently added a Body Media Fit into the equation. It turns out that the little things I do throughout the day are enough to make me not sedentary. This includes the cleaning, the cooking, running errands, grocery shopping, etc.

My Body Media Fit says I'm actually VERY active - not sedentary like I thought. According to it, I'm burning an average of about 2700 calories a day. I tend to believe it because MFP maintenance numbers weren't really allowing me to maintain. I hit my goal weight at the end of January, but have still lost seven more pounds in two months using MFP's maintenance calorie calculation.

So... yes - I think daily activities DO count. People can either choose a higher activity level in general or stay at sedentary and log the extra activities manually. The end result should be the same.

msudaisy28

If we set out activity level at sedentary it only accounts for breathing.

Not true - it accounts for minimal movement throughout the day (5,000 steps or less). Mine is set at sedentary and I wear a pedometer to know exactly how many steps I take throughout the day. I log calories burned for every step taken above and beyond 5,000 in a day.