Is housework exercise?

kimmydear

I don't log it. My 15-month-old is into pulling everything out of drawers right now and picking all that up feels like it should count for something, but no I still don't. I just set my activity level to lightly active. ;-)

Amberetta82

Someone said on here once, that if it's something you'd be doing regardless of trying to lose weight or get fit- it doesn't really count and you're cheating yourself by logging it.

I agree with this. Unless you just started cleaning! If it is something you have always done then, no, your body is used to it.

Just like working, I wouldn't log anything that I do on a daily basis.

+1

Nastasha915

Yep. You can log it on here too. A surprising amount of calories.

Nastasha915

I work my butt off most days with all the housework, surely there should be an option in the exercise diary for that somewhere?

No. Quit being a sissy and cheating yourself.

Agree. Why would you want to cheat yourself? Unless I work up a serious sweat, I will not log it. I don't feel like I am doing myself any favors by "giving" myself extra calories to consume.
But I suppose if you are just entering them and not eating them...that would work, but I don't see the point of that.

I don't agree. I don't eat back those kinds of calories, but I think it's good to keep track of what you are doing. Especially if you are doing a lot of cleaning.

melbot24

If you do a lot of housework daily, I would suggest changing your daily activity level (i.e lightly active to active) and then re-calculating your daily calorie goal and macro distribution.

To do this:

Navigate to the Food tab, then Goals, then click Change Goals, follow the guided options to update your diet goals.

You'll be making the changes here:

How would you describe your normal daily activities?

Sedentary: Spend most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)
Lightly Active: Spend a good part of the day on your feet (e.g. nurse, salesman)
***Active: Spend a good part of the day doing some physical activity (e.g. waitress, mailman)
Very Active: Spend most of the day doing heavy physical activity (e.g. bike messenger, carpenter)

FitLink

I work my butt off most days with all the housework, surely there should be an option in the exercise diary for that somewhere?

No. Quit being a sissy and cheating yourself.

I dare you to even survive the nerve pain I suffer every day. How DARE you call ANYONE else a sissy?

mmstgr

My regular daily cleaning is not exercise.
But I do count it in when I am either washing the floors and windows, or re-arranging furniture, cleaning out the shed, doing yard work, etc.
The daily stuff doesn't count to me.

PeaceLoveVeggies

Here is the deal...housework IS exercise if it is not counted into your daily goals. I set mine up for lightly active and that includes everything I do in a day. This includes dishes, laundry, cooking dinner, sweeping etc. However, once every week or two I mop the entire house...this is an hour long process since we have many furry friends that live with us...THIS is not part of my daily routine and YES I count it as it is extra. I keep showing a lose on my weight ticker so I guess it works!

Here is the deal.

NO it's not. It's housework. Not exercise.

But, you're only cheating yourself.

Seriously, get over yourself sweetheart. Who are you to tell other people that them sweating buckets and being SORE after cleaning an entire house isn't exercise?

treetop57

Here's what I said on the last thread on this topic:

If you account for them by choosing a higher activity level, then don't record them and don't add the calories back into your daily food intake.

If you don't account for them in your activity level, then do record them, do add the calories back into your daily food intake, and do ignore people who try to make you feel like a wuss for recording accurately.

In either case, monitor your progress and reevaluate as needed.

Apparently, I should have said "sissy" instead of "wuss."

FitLink

Someone said on here once, that if it's something you'd be doing regardless of trying to lose weight or get fit- it doesn't really count and you're cheating yourself by logging it.

I agree with this. Unless you just started cleaning! If it is something you have always done then, no, your body is used to it.

Just like working, I wouldn't log anything that I do on a daily basis.

So if you've always run, and/or do it on a daily basis, it's not exercise? I assume you don't work out on a daily basis, then? Because it then wouldn't be exercise, would it, because your body is used to it? You'd be cheating yourself to log it.

myfitnessnmhoy

Here is the deal...housework IS exercise if it is not counted into your daily goals. I set mine up for lightly active and that includes everything I do in a day. This includes dishes, laundry, cooking dinner, sweeping etc. However, once every week or two I mop the entire house...this is an hour long process since we have many furry friends that live with us...THIS is not part of my daily routine and YES I count it as it is extra. I keep showing a lose on my weight ticker so I guess it works!

^^^ This. If housework is part of your daily life, then "lightly active" rather than "sedentary" is probably the right lifestyle setting for you. Then you get the extra calories in your "allotment" every day.

Then when you do spring cleaning or something harder (mopping, scrubbing, etc) you can count that as a separate activity.

But if you choose a lifestyle pattern that actually fits your lifestyle, your daily chores are already covered in your calories.

But, honestly, if you find housework less boring because you get to log it as exercise and you feel like you're "earning" a little extra food for it, whatever motivates YOU is perfectly OK.

FitLink

I work my butt off most days with all the housework, surely there should be an option in the exercise diary for that somewhere?

No. Quit being a sissy and cheating yourself.

I dare you to even survive the nerve pain I suffer every day. How DARE you call ANYONE else a sissy?

You're a sissy if you count housework as exercise and justify it in any way you can come up with. It's not exercise.

Nerve PAIN doesn't make it a calorie burner. It means you haven't taken care of your body and are in pain. Not burning calories.

Sissy = counting housework as exercise. How dare you cheat your body.

What school did you go to where you learned to diagnose illness without even meeting someone? Are you actually saying the only causes of nerve pain are "not taking care of your body?" Exercise is based on HEART RATE, not whether or not it's a domestic task.

myfitnessnmhoy

Here is the deal...housework IS exercise if it is not counted into your daily goals. I set mine up for lightly active and that includes everything I do in a day. This includes dishes, laundry, cooking dinner, sweeping etc. However, once every week or two I mop the entire house...this is an hour long process since we have many furry friends that live with us...THIS is not part of my daily routine and YES I count it as it is extra. I keep showing a lose on my weight ticker so I guess it works!

Here is the deal.

NO it's not. It's housework. Not exercise.

But, you're only cheating yourself.

Seriously, get over yourself sweetheart. Who are you to tell other people that them sweating buckets and being SORE after cleaning an entire house isn't exercise?

Please don't feed the troll.

TracieDeane

Hey, house work can be very physical, but you probably wouldn't know that there is a calorie burner listed in the exercises for it, would you?

Jenjaz1910

I never log cleaning as its a daily activity that I do! In theory it should be covered in your activity level anyway x

joseelou

Hi, I was just looking for that a few minutes ago. Every weekend, I do at least 2 hours of intensive house chores then another 2 not so intense. I think they should add that to the list. My sister wore one of those watches that counts calories and all and in an 8 hour day, just cooking, baking and doing house hold chores in between, she burnt off appr. 800 calories. That counts for a lot

TracieDeane

That guy is a *kitten*. I hope he never has to walk in someone else's shoes that experiences nerve pain.

Jaimehathcock

It is totally exercise and calorie burning. I like to put weights on my ankles and wrists to add some power to my cleaning!!!

gomisskellygo

Someone said on here once, that if it's something you'd be doing regardless of trying to lose weight or get fit- it doesn't really count and you're cheating yourself by logging it.

I agree with this. Unless you just started cleaning! If it is something you have always done then, no, your body is used to it.

Just like working, I wouldn't log anything that I do on a daily basis.

So if you've always run, and/or do it on a daily basis, it's not exercise? I assume you don't work out on a daily basis, then? Because it then wouldn't be exercise, would it, because your body is used to it? You'd be cheating yourself to log it.

Running-Of course it would count as exercise but you wouldn't get the same burn as a new exercise. I do actually run every day and my calories burned have dropped significantly since I am running more efficiently. So I do log it, according to my HRM. As far as housework is concerned unless I am doing something COMPLETELY out of the ordinary like painting a room, refinishing furniture, I would not log it.
If you want to log it, awesome. I wouldn't.

dlwyatt82

Any physical activity is technically "exercise", but you don't have to log every little thing. That's where the daily activity level estimate comes in, to set a base of how many calories you are assumed to burn in the day before you add in your logged workouts.

mandylooo

What you're aiming for is:

calories in (food) - calories out (activity, living) = a calorie deficit (normally around - 500/day to lose weight).

As long as you achieve that, it doesn't matter how you log it.

So, you can either set yourself as sedentary and log housework, walking the dog, sex or whatever,

OR

you can set yourself as lightly active, or even moderately active and log progressively fewer things.

IF you're not losing weight, then your calories in vs calories out balance is being logged incorrectly and you need work out what you're over (activity) or under recording (food)

None of this has anything to do with whether something is an individual's "normal daily activity" - MFP doesn't know what you do or don't do as normal daily activity when it calculates your calories for you. It just calculates according to the categories "sedentary", "lightly active" etc.

FitLink

Someone said on here once, that if it's something you'd be doing regardless of trying to lose weight or get fit- it doesn't really count and you're cheating yourself by logging it.

I agree with this. Unless you just started cleaning! If it is something you have always done then, no, your body is used to it.

Just like working, I wouldn't log anything that I do on a daily basis.

So if you've always run, and/or do it on a daily basis, it's not exercise? I assume you don't work out on a daily basis, then? Because it then wouldn't be exercise, would it, because your body is used to it? You'd be cheating yourself to log it.

Running-Of course it would count as exercise but you wouldn't get the same burn as a new exercise. I do actually run every day and my calories burned have dropped significantly since I am running more efficiently. So I do log it, according to my HRM. As far as housework is concerned unless I am doing something COMPLETELY out of the ordinary like painting a room, refinishing furniture, I would not log it.
If you want to log it, awesome. I wouldn't.

Your body can't tell painting a room from washing the walls in that same room. Why should one count as exercise and the other not? The only way you could possibly KNOW you're running is benefitting you less is if you are measuring it with an HRM. If you wear an HRM, and it indicates calorie burn, why would this be different. Yes, you and I can both log what we want, but suggesting that an increased heart rate from running is any different from the same increased heart rate from cleaning or anything else you "have to do anyway" is nonsense. By your housework reasoning, you shouldn't report your running as exercise.

As to my own reporting? I don't report house cleaning because I wear a FitBit. I only report things FitBit isn't designed to report, like swimming or weight training. But when I clean, my FitBit DOES automagically log an adjustment, because it IS exercise.

treetop57

An interesting blog post on this topic: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/LastSixtySix/view/gym-versus-the-vacuum-an-experiment-217525

A summary of the results of her "Gym vs. Vacuum" experiment:

apretz1

Wear an HRM. It may feel exhausting but i have found it really doesn't burn as many calories as you think!

FitLink

Any physical activity is technically "exercise", but you don't have to log every little thing. That's where the daily activity level estimate comes in, to set a base of how many calories you are assumed to burn in the day before you add in your logged workouts.

True. As it happens, due to injury, illness and nerve pain, my daily activity varies wildly. It makes more sense to set for sedentary and add in. I make that easier by letting my FitBit do the actually ADL logging, but the idea that house cleaning isn't exercise or someone is a "sissy" if they record it, is absurd.

treetop57

Not to mention insulting to us sissies.

myfitnessnmhoy

What you're aiming for is:

calories in (food) - calories out (activity, living) = a calorie deficit (normally around - 500/day to lose weight).

As long as you achieve that, it doesn't matter how you log it.

So, you can either set yourself as sedentary and log housework, walking the dog, sex or whatever,

OR

you can set yourself as lightly active, or even moderately active and log progressively fewer things.

IF you're not losing weight, then your calories in vs calories out balance is being logged incorrectly and you need work out what you're over (activity) or under recording (food)

None of this has anything to do with whether something is an individual's "normal daily activity" - MFP doesn't know what you do or don't do as normal daily activity when it calculates your calories for you. It just calculates according to the categories "sedentary", "lightly active" etc.

^^^^ Nicely said. If you set your "lifestyle" to match your actual daily activity, you don't need to log every little thing. If you actually prefer to log every little thing, good on ya, set your lifestyle to "sedentary" and have at it. The numbers will probably work out to be about the same, and you'll lose the same amount (or not) either way based on how accurately the numbers reflect reality.

It doesn't really matter as long as you are making an effort to be accurate in the number of calories you take in and the number you burn. If you burn 500 more calories a day than you take in, all other things being equal, you will lose one pound a week. How you choose to COUNT those calories is up to you.

love2cycle

Oh my...YES!!!

Azdak

I work my butt off most days with all the housework, surely there should be an option in the exercise diary for that somewhere?

If your butt is shrinking from all the housework, then yes. If not, then no.

DrG3n3

When they said eat less, move more, they didn't say eat less, move more (but only if that movement is working out in a gym or to a workout dvd) so for me, my once a month real cleaning (moving furniture, washing the tubs and toilets, washing the sinks out and scrubbing dishes by hand) which can take me a few hours, gets counted. I have an HRM so that helps because I subtract out what cals I would have burned any way. In the end, its personal preference and if you feel like it is cheating then don't count it. If its a good workout for you, count it. Heck, not everyone is in physical shape to get out and run or bike or do a gym workout, so moving around the house is all they can do.