Fake Activity Calories?

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

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:

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...

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.

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...

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.

Solution! Don't eat back calories!

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.

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.

I couldn't resist looking this one up! Knitting burns 29 calories per hour according to www.fitday.com. Have fun!

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.

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.

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!

I heard people log it as wrestling. LOL

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

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!