How much exercise counts as exercise?

cookiefluff

Sorry if this is a silly question, I just find myself overwhelmed on the amount of people doing amazing workouts on this. I have to say, I don't sit on a couch ALL day, but neither do I do any extreme workouts, so how little is considered an exercise and worth adding on to the diary on MFP??
For example: I vacuum my living room every day and pick up my baby girl's toys off the ground and into her toy box 3 times a day LOL. I dance and play with her, by dancing I mean move about with her like crazy (her in my arms, she's about 10kgs heavy)
I go up and down stairs all day doing laundry, etc... now THIS is an example of my laziest days... when I'm not out shopping or jumping rope (just started he he).
Because this is normal to me everyday I don't feel like it deserves to be called exercise, but maybe I'm wrong!
, do I add this in? and how? I'm scared that I am consuming too little calories but I always stick to my recommended amount for losing weight....

Please some suggestions guys, who's in the same boat as me?

JesterMFP

With these things that you do everyday, and don't really seem like planned exercise, I would personally count them as part of your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (the part where you tick "sedentary", "lightly active", "active" etc). Then your calorie goal would slightly increase to account for your normal daily activity, but you wouldn't log them as exercise or eat back exercise calories. Only if you do extra exercise like going for a long walk, or to the gym, or doing an exercise video would you actually log it as exercise on MFP. That's what I'd do anyway. Then, if after a few weeks you find you aren't losing weight as expected, you can adjust the level again as appropriate.

cookiefluff

With these things that you do everyday, and don't really seem like planned exercise, I would personally count them as part of your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (the part where you tick "sedentary", "lightly active", "active" etc). Then your calorie goal would slightly increase to account for your normal daily activity, but you wouldn't log them as exercise or eat back exercise calories. Only if you do extra exercise like going for a long walk, or to the gym, or doing an exercise video would you actually log it as exercise on MFP. That's what I'd do anyway. Then, if after a few weeks you find you aren't losing weight as expected, you can adjust the level again as appropriate.

thanks so much, I'll do that now!!