How to Log my Days being just a mommy

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hottamolly00
hottamolly00 Posts: 334 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I work 5 days a week and am very sedentary at work...desk job. Saturday and Sunday I'm a full time mommy. I mean, I'm chasing around my toddler, bending over to pick her up, lifting her, carrying her, playing with her, cleaning, cooking, you name it...

I still try to stay at 1200 (my bmr is 1400) even on these days, but I know for a fact I'm not just burning 1400 calories being so active. Would y'all track that as exercise (walking?) on those days since it's out of the ordinary?

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  • servilia
    servilia Posts: 3,452 Member
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    I would consider that everyday activity so personally I would leave it be. But if you insist on accounting for it you can change your settings to lightly active. Good luck!
  • BarbieAS
    BarbieAS Posts: 1,414 Member
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    Just for some perspective for you...

    I use a Fitbit. If you're not familiar, it's basically a fancy pedometer that syncs to a website and, based on all your stats, will calculate your estimated calorie burn for the day. Based on all of the other activity estimators and my actual gains/losses, I feel like it's pretty accurate.

    I too have a desk job Mon-Fri and am full-time mommy to two very little kids (a 3.5 year old and a 1.5 year old) on the weekends. I *feel* like I'm a LOT more active on the weekends with cooking, cleaning, chasing, doing all that stuff. But, historically, when I compare an average day at work (no workout, just a normal day of going to work, coming home, doing the dinner/bed/couple of chores routine) with an average day on the weekend (no specific big activity like a trip to the zoo or taking them for a really long walk or hours of shopping, just doing stuff around the house and maybe a quick errand or two) I actually tend to burn a lot LESS calories on the weekends rather than more. Like, almost a shocking amount less. I think more people get more activity during a workday than they think they do, and get a lot less activity doing stuff around the house than they think they do (which is why I always have a chuckle when I see people logging light cleaning as exercise).

    I in no way am saying that my experience and activity level is exactly like yours. I'm just sharing my personal point of view because I'd like to urge you to take a good hard look at your activity levels before you make any changes. Even go to Target and get a $10 pedometer and check out your steps on an average weekday vs a weekend.

    If it turns out that you ARE burning a lot more on the weekends, make your best guess of an average number of calories burned each day over an entire week, and set that (less your desired deficit) as your calorie goal. Searching for "In Place of a Road Map" or the "TDEE Method" on these forums may be a huge help to you.

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