To add or not to add cleaning calories

limitedmommy

I dont normally add cleaning to my exercise calories but since today i am steam cleaning my carpets and scrubbing walls and baseboards which i wouldn't do as a normal everyday as a stay at home house mommy... do I add them or not?

my activity level is set to lightly active but it doesn't change my calories if it change it to anything less I am already eating the lowest 1200 calories a day plus what I eat earned from exercise. They only thing I have found it changes is when I complete my daily log the amount of weight it say I will be in 5 weeks. However I don't want to cheat myself either but I don't want to under do it either. Help???

annanderson77985

Right now, cleaning is my exercise.. So, I do add those calories.

I would say, if it is something out of the ordinary.. something that you do above and beyond what you did before you began your weight loss journey.. then, yes.. add those calories..

rosy003

I did today b/c, like you, I did a full house cleaning with lots of out of the ordinary scrubbing etc. but, I logged it as "light" and only logged half the time b/c I feel like the calorie estimate on here is inflated.

princessrisariri

I find the calories MFP puts for cleaning to be way too high though, so just estimate realistically and put it in manually so as not to 'cheat' yourself

mudonthetires856

I did today b/c, like you, I did a full house cleaning with lots of out of the ordinary scrubbing etc. but, I logged it as "light" and only logged half the time b/c I feel like the calorie estimate on here is inflated.

Agreed. I don't log cleaning because I still did that while gaining weight, but if it's an unusual amount of cleaning I will. I mean like a SERIOUS spring cleaning where I spend most of the day doing it. However, the calories burned are way overestimated, so I would log it for a quarter or half of the time actually spent and I still don't eat those calories back.

That being said, I do actually recommend that you eat back half of the calorie estimate. I eat around 1500 calories a day, so I just include it as an extra deficit for the day. With you only eating 1200, you are going to need those extra calories. You have to fuel the body for all that cleaning!

ThisGirl2013

add 'em and don't eat 'em back. That's what I would do!

ebailey710

Depends on what the cleaning entails. I normally do some sort of laundry and dishes about every day, but if I'm cleaning the whole house or something I will add them.

concordancia

I think these special situations are probably the reason these activities are in the database.