Fake Activity Calories?

NeverTooLateForChange · January 2013

I carry my baby on my back when I am cooking, vacuuming, doing laundry, hauling those clothes baskets up and down the stairs...heck yeah I log it as fitness. I'm usually a sweaty mess when Im done w/ a sleeping kid on my back.

TaminaShock · January 2013

I'm a Chef and I do burn calories running around the kitchen preparing food. Even at home.It beats just sitting around watching tv

DebraYvonne · January 2013

LOL!

TaminaShock · January 2013

I agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't consider any activity "fake". If you do, then let me tell you that I have lost 25 lbs. doing "fake" exercises. :drinker:

Some of us are handicapped or have other physical limitations or have had surgery, and we can't lift or do strenuous workouts. "Food preparation" means you are standing for a long period of time, which is isometric. Cleaning means you are bending, stretching arms, lifting laundry baskets and furniture to vacuum under, etc. That's a workout! Grocery shopping or going ot the mall counts as walking at a slow pace, and I can spend hours doing both.

As well, I have two very damaged knees, so Ido a "workout in a chair" that I follow on youtube.

Let's not judge one another or compare someone else's exercise to your own. The light activities that work for many of us may not be your cup of tea, but at least it's working.

Nicely put!!! Botched spinal surgery last march has me in this situation...do I wish I could run on the treadmill for 60 min? He** yea...but these days just standing and hobbling is a major defeat. So cooking, cleaning & grocery shopping I log. Honestly its for the mind. I wish pain could be calculated...

THIS! And once again, I don't understand why anyone should care what anyone else is doing on MFP UNLESS they have asked for opinions. When I log exercise it's for MY benefit, to see what I'm able to do over and above my daily routine because a health issue makes many routine activities very difficult for me.... I NEVER eat back those calories! It's for my own information, not for some exercise Nazi to tell me the calories I'm burning are from a "fake" activity!

:drinker: Excellent.:flowerforyou:

Dargealing · January 2013

I do work up a sweat and get my heart rate up cleaning houses, but It obviously was not enough as I would have been losing weight long before I came to MFP. As I have been cleaning houses for 20+ yrs. So I moniter it and I know when I am burning when I want to start shredding my shirt off and wipe sweat off my forhead as I am running up and down the stairs at my houses, vacuuming changing beds etc. doing laundry and 2 of my jobs I do this at and am there 4 hours or more. I am exhausted by the time I am done.
But the most impact is acutal calorie burn doing butt kicking workouts that I have now been doing for almost a year. So my heavy house cleaning jobs are just bonus perk calories that I probably eat back every day.. As long as I progress and the scales go down, that is what counts for me..

ladyark · January 2013

I do not log any activity as exercise unless i have my heart rate up enough and long enough to make it count. To me food prep and cleaning house is really not exercise. I guess if your scrubbing floors on your hands and knees that havent been cleaned in years that might work but really i like to think of those things as just a lil extra movement in the day . Just my opinion get out there and move your butt and sweat and huff and puff and make it count....not with breaks and being on the phone etc while your cleaning or cooking...

dorothytd · January 2013

The only time I use the cooking or cleaning activty calories is when I am doing a "full" house cleaning or really doing the cooking on a large scale. Like when I have friends over for dinner and am running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Thank God it does not happen often. lol.

This exactly. And I will log about half of it, even so. It is very seldom!!!

JanaCanada · January 2013

I do work up a sweat and get my heart rate up cleaning houses, but It obviously was not enough as I would have been losing weight long before I came to MFP.

Not necessarily. Perhaps you were eating a ton of calories and the work you did didn't make a difference. People who eat to their TDEE and then do housework can still lose.

dmpizza · January 2013

10 calories, reading random posts.

iamkarent · January 2013

I think it all depends on what your settings are, and if the activity is already built in to your settings, and being honest with yourself about the activity level.

I do in fact input cleaning, in to my calories lately. However, I have my settings set to sedentary, and therefore any activity above that can be considered. But even then I only put in when I put in a decent effort, that I wouldnt have normally done.

Such as, doing a project around the house (recently bought a fixer upper)

So today, I spent a few hours, cleaning the garage , loading two different truckloads of trash and bringing it to the dump etc. So seemed pretty reasonable to give myself a couple hundred calories. But I also only give a fraction of the time I spent (45 mins or so)

I do not feel it is fake at all.

But you have to be honest with yourself...

rduhlir · January 2013

Shopping can be added in as casual walking (2 mph) and for a 30 minute session I only burn 65 calories. But, if I were to have gone shopping say all day, or spent 4 hours at the mall walking around, it adds up. So does house cleaning. There are times where I have broken a sweat house cleaning. An hour of consistent house cleaning for me can burn up to 300 calories an hour. So yes, definitely worth logging.

3foldchord · January 2013

Maybe for new people who come from a life where they watched TV all day and never even did simple things like food prep (order out ) never vacuumed ( had a maid? Or spouse did it) and logging these things for the first few months helps them see the difference doing these regular activities they never did...
For them it is a lttle extra boost to keep them going. Good for them to find motivation to get up and move.

For those who are logging everything they always do and are set to "moderate active' anyway... Just racking up free calories, well that will be their own downfall when they are eating more than they are really burning, since the activity level usua.ly accounts for that. That's their problem. I don't care.

Some people set their calorie intake to their BMR ( amount needed to be alive in a coma, basically) so all those activities are extra burns for them maybe.

None of my business really. But it it bugs me enough, I can unfriend someone instead of talking about them on the message board. Your friends list people can see this post and know you are talking about them.

TaminaShock · January 2013

What is body media?

kimcalica · January 2013

Solution! Don't eat back calories!

IronGirlShae · January 2013

I log my cleaning as it is usually a multi-hour job that has me sweating and exhausted. I have all my settings to the most sedentary possible because I have a lot of pain and health problems and before starting MFP I really didn't get off the couch much at all. I am losing weight at a good rate or 1-2lbs a week. I also do the treadmill or elliptical 3-5 days a week. Once I get into better shape and am able to be more active I might stop logging the cleaning.

Nocwhispr · January 2013

I guess it depends on what you call food preparation. When I am busting my chops for 3 and 4 hours at a time in the kitchen...I feel no shame in counting that...but like others have said to each their own.

udallmom101 · January 2013

Unless I am sweating it doesn't get logged.

NCchar130 · January 2013

I only log my exercise, with one exception - heavy yardwork. That isn't something I do every day and I may spend 3-4 hours doing it and it is exhausting. But, since MFP may tell me I burned 1000+ calories doing it, I usually don't eat all those calories back. Especially in the summer since being overheated as well as exhausted from doing it kills my appetite entirely.