Logging "Cooking or Food Preparation" as Exercise

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blondie0942
blondie0942 Posts: 146 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Lately, I've noticed people on mfp have been logging "cooking or food prep" as exercise in their diaries. My question is: is this accurate? I work as a cook at the local hospital and I have 8 hour shifts of cooking for hundreds of people, which involves a lot of heavy lifting and other manual labor. However, I am worried that if I log that as exercise my suggested net calories will be too high.

For those who log cooking as exercise, what experience do you have with this? and would you recommend it? Thanks.

Replies

  • jonzo21
    jonzo21 Posts: 446 Member
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    It annoys me when I see people log this, grocery shopping, and cleaning. To me, those are normal daily activities that are already included in your calorie allowance (thats why you set your daily activity level)

    for you however, since there is a lot of lifting etc, I wouldn't necessarily log it as exercise, but change your daily activity level to something higher
  • Guamybear
    Guamybear Posts: 1,061 Member
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    what she said ^^^^^
  • pastryari
    pastryari Posts: 8,646 Member
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    For you, that should already be taken into account when you chose your activity level. Others may or may not choose to log cooking as exercise (I wouldn't). You should have chosen an active activity level and then only log any actual exercise you complete.
  • mawdv8
    mawdv8 Posts: 3
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    Its all called incidental exercise. Exercise that you are doing during the course of the day, which includes washing, vacuming, mopping, etc. depending on your exertion is whether i would include it in your daily exercise.
  • VelociMama
    VelociMama Posts: 3,119 Member
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    The calorie burn estimate for food prep is way way too high. I would just adjust your activity level instead to correctly accommodate your more active lifestyle.
  • oAshlio
    oAshlio Posts: 44 Member
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    You also have to remember that when registering with MFP it asked what your day was like as far as a job. If you stood alot, sat down, did heavy lifting-- these things are also added into your calorie intake. I like to add food preperation in mine because my main day is sitting around pretty much and it reminds me that I do get a bit of exercise in. It could be that the calories you spend at work, or at least part of them, are already logged in on your MFP without needing to log it yourself.
  • macogle
    macogle Posts: 5
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    While I wouldn't personally log food prep, like others have said, I could certainly understand someone who has indicated their activity level as "Sedentary" logging it if it was out of the ordinary, particularly something like industrial food prep, where you're standing for a great deal of time and exerting yourself physically beyond your normal baseline for activity.

    While I would be inclined to say that someone in that line of work should up their activity level from sedentary, it would make a lot of sense if it was a part-time job or a new one.

    As with all things, if someone finds that counting cooking as exercise works for them and they see progress, then by all means they should log it; more power to them. If it doesn't work for you, don't log it and move on.
  • rede2go
    rede2go Posts: 82 Member
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    I am not sure about the food prep I agree that is regular day to day stuff but shopping and things of that nature people will do for longer periods of time to get there burn in. They are using this as there cardio or walking... it is to cold here to be walking outside so if you dont have a gym membership the mall or grocery store is the next best thing. We are all going and logging on our own moral compus. To be honest cleaning isnt something I do on a regular day to day basis.... (have three kids and chores are done by them in order to earn allowance) so someone like me could honestly enter that and it would be out of the norm.... ya get what I am saying.... and yes I feel very blessed to have there help... there is something about having someone else do the dishes lol

    have a great day everyone

    heather

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