Does anyone else count house work as exercise?

so I get that house cleaning = moving = burning calories. But in terms of weight loss etc I have a question....

Did you not clean your house before you started cutting calories?

Im assuming so, so how can that make a difference?

The difference is in tracking your intake. I would go to the gym, walk, bike, do weights with machines, swim, and all of those other things everyone obviously considers "real" exercise but still never lost scale weight for years.

I actually gained weight while swimming - and not leisure swimming... lane swim.. at a good pace.. I wasn't tracking anything I would get hungry and be like "Oh I swam today I will eat this." and boom... eating all the food made me fat and I was active.

OP - if you think that cleaning is exercise add it. I only add deep cleaning (which I do like once a month because I am a procrastinator) but if you are going to stay on track better tracking EVERYTHING do it. And FYI.... some people DIDN'T clean their house before they started this. I have a friend (not on here) that just got to the point where they can clean their house with their weight loss - until recently they paid someone to come in and do it for them... they also work from home and stayed in bed all the time. So for some yes daily cleaning is exercise.. Just sayin.

if you log cleaning, yard work, moving, cooking, and other domestic activities as exercise, you're just kidding yourself.

i did not do two triathlons and three mud runs, and dead lift 310lbs from logging cleaning.

If it was hard work then yes I do include it although I would try very hard not to 'eat' those calories back

Cos I wear a fitbit, any running up and down the stairs with ironing etc all counts towards my step total so yeah - fitbit adjusts with MFP and I get the calorie benefit

The day to day laundry, dishwashing, dusting, sweeping, cooking etc no. But if its move the furniture, beat the rugs, haul bags of mulch, move pavers, shovel 2 feet of snow - then yes I do. Grocery shopping - no - hauling 15 bags of groceries, 40 lbs of cat litter and 30 pounds of chow up three floors - you bet! It may use different muscles than the treadmill but if you shaking by the time your done it most certainly counts!!

I don't... anything I consider part of my normal routine I don't log. Anything extra I do to work up a sweat (mowing the lawn for my parents for example) I log.

If it's something that was already part of your routine before you started trying to get in shape, I wouldn't log it. The way I look at it is if you were "maintaining" at that level of activity already then it doesn't really count as exercise, it's routine. You were already burning that amount of calories and not losing, so why would it make a difference now that you are "aware" of your daily caloric intake? Now, if you're going above and beyond what you would normally do, then yes, log some additional time in for that.

I did not read through all the posts but I just wanted to say that I have seen people on my friends list log housework and it says something like "light cleaning, chores" duration 1 hours calories burned 678.....um...I don't think so. I would really get a heart rate monitor to see if that is true because I can barely burn that running on a treadmill for an hour!

I really recently started..If it is vigorous enough..why not right? ..it's more accurate

I don't log any exercise other than things I've done specifically, eg elliptical, walking, or things I don't normally do, eg stacking firewood, digging garden.
When I first signed up to MFP I put my lifestyle as "lightly active", I think that covers the things I do day to day as a housewife and mother of 5, so I won't add them in.