Fake Activity Calories?

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  • NeverTooLateForChange
    NeverTooLateForChange Posts: 131 Member
    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
    TaminaShock Posts: 191 Member
    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
    DebraYvonne Posts: 632 Member
    LOL!
  • TaminaShock
    TaminaShock Posts: 191 Member
    I agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    I don't consider any activity "fake". :angry: 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
    Dargealing Posts: 58 Member
    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
    ladyark Posts: 1,101 Member
    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
    dorothytd Posts: 1,138 Member
    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
    JanaCanada Posts: 917 Member
    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
    dmpizza Posts: 3,321 Member
    10 calories, reading random posts.
  • iamkarent
    iamkarent Posts: 144 Member
    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
    rduhlir Posts: 3,550 Member
    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
    3foldchord Posts: 2,918 Member
    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
    TaminaShock Posts: 191 Member
    What is body media?
  • kimcalica
    kimcalica Posts: 525 Member
    Solution! Don't eat back calories!
  • IronGirlShae
    IronGirlShae Posts: 58 Member
    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
    Nocwhispr Posts: 3 Member
    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
    udallmom101 Posts: 564 Member
    Unless I am sweating it doesn't get logged.
  • NCchar130
    NCchar130 Posts: 955 Member
    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.
  • baja572
    baja572 Posts: 94
    I don't log it, but if I am sewing I'm not eating. a plus.
  • onecharliecat
    onecharliecat Posts: 5 Member
    I couldn't resist looking this one up! Knitting burns 29 calories per hour according to www.fitday.com. Have fun! :)
  • TeachTheGirl
    TeachTheGirl Posts: 2,091 Member
    I think it's up to the individual to how they want to log their own calories.

    For me, if I do it daily, I don't log it. If it's prolonged and occasional (mopping entire apartment, lifting furniture/moving out furniture to sweep and vacuum, shoveling snow, etc) then I'll log it. But I don't eat exercise calories anyway, so it doesn't matter either way.
  • SilverLotusGirl
    SilverLotusGirl Posts: 537 Member
    I've wondered this too. I personally don't log calories for cleaning or cooking. I used to log exercise calories but I don't even do that anymore. I note what I did but don't log it. I have friends who log cleaning, cooking, sex and they seem to be losing weight so maybe it works.

    Also I'd imagine that since to sew or knit you are moving and using muscles to stay upright that it is burning some calories but I'm not sure if it'd be enough to burn, but if it does only burn 50 calories or so that's half a cup of juice or half an apple.
  • nc805397
    nc805397 Posts: 223 Member
    I only logged 'cleaning light. moderate effort', once. This was because I cleaned my room TOP to BOTTOM and it was a disaster and took me 8 hours straight (WITHOUT A BREAK). haha. Otherwise, small amounts of cleaning are not worth logging to me.
  • Yes2HealthyAriel
    Yes2HealthyAriel Posts: 453 Member
    It really depends on what kinda cleaning and/or food preparation we are talking about. I have worn my HRM while doing some of this kind of stuff just to see how many calories one really does burn. Sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming burn about 60-70 calories for 20 minutes. Cutting vegetable and shredding meat burned a lot when I did it for 2 hours straight and my back was killing me.
  • DebbieLyn63
    DebbieLyn63 Posts: 2,654 Member
    I don't understand why 'sex' isn't an option in the exercise log.
    Some people log it as "moving furniture"

    Some call it 'walking the dog'.

    Bet you look at your friend list in a whole new light now! :wink:
  • Shayztar
    Shayztar Posts: 415 Member
    I don't understand why 'sex' isn't an option in the exercise log.
    Some people log it as "moving furniture"

    Some call it 'walking the dog'.

    Bet you look at your friend list in a whole new light now! :wink:

    I heard people log it as wrestling. LOL
  • candlelady52
    candlelady52 Posts: 1 Member
    I go to physical therapy and they have me in a moving chair where Im swinging my body around side to side, round and round, back and forth...that should count as exericse because Im still moving my body for 20 minutes.
  • PikaKnight
    PikaKnight Posts: 34,971 Member
    Overall Lesson: Stop worrying about what other people are doing when what they are doing really doesn't affect your life in any way. Whatever someone logs as exercise is THEIR business. Quit nit-picking on what you think exercise is or isn't and go enjoy life.

    "Don't take life so seriously...you'll never get out alive" --Van Wilder

    TheMoreYouKnow.gif
  • clarkeje1
    clarkeje1 Posts: 1,641 Member
    Personally I don't add that stuff. I only add things like running, doing a workout dvd, zumba class etc. Stuff that I would wear my HRM for.
  • DebbieLyn63
    DebbieLyn63 Posts: 2,654 Member
    I am on the lowest activity setting and back when I was trying to lose I didn't add things like cleaning or cooking to my calorie count. I really wanted to make my goal though. I wanted it more than I wanted to eat a few more calories. I think you should always underestimate your activity and overestimate your calories. Most of us have plenty of fuel for our muscles attached to our muscles.

    And THIS is how you lose 100 pounds! Congrats on your success!
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