How Many Calories did you burn "Cleaning House" last week?

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  • 3foldchord
    3foldchord Posts: 2,918 Member
    none. I paid my kids to do some extra cleaning last week so I wouldn't have to do it myself.
  • F0xt0ber
    F0xt0ber Posts: 3 Member
    yes, I count cleaning as exercise, under "Moving Household items".This seems an accurate way to count real housework. It was the closest one I found, in the list. It is something I have to do on days when I'm not at the Gym or the walking path.My house won't be so clean when I am out on the bike path or swimming laps , though!! That will not be soon enough for me
  • JaceyMarieS
    JaceyMarieS Posts: 692 Member
    I don't log cleaning. I don't log any exercise including Zumba, elliptical, stationary bike or walking/jogging. I have a Fitibt which tracks my steps and sends a calorie adjustment based on activity. I rarely eat back more than 100-200 exercise calories so it doesn't matter that much to me
  • 7Nonny
    7Nonny Posts: 15
    I occasionally log cleaning house when it ends up being a good workout. Why not take the calories? You burn em, you earn em.
  • devil_in_a_blue_dress
    devil_in_a_blue_dress Posts: 5,214 Member
    I don't log cleaning my house -- I do log yard maintenance it's a few hundred calories a week according to my HRM.
  • jenniferrusso7393
    jenniferrusso7393 Posts: 189 Member
    I guess it just really depends on how often you do the activity and how strenuous it is... I consider vaccuuming a workout, likewise scrubbing the bathtub. Sweeping the floor or washing dishes-- no... I lug a heavy vaccuum up and down stairs, and I am sweating and panting... its exercise to me!
  • _SABOTEUR_
    _SABOTEUR_ Posts: 6,833 Member
    You know the term 'Cleaning house' means getting rid of dead bodies?
  • pspetralia
    pspetralia Posts: 963 Member
    are u serious.....I'm overweight and I clean my house all the time....log everything you eat...thats more important

    Pretty much how I feel. Cleaning my house didn't keep me from getting fat in the first place. Instead I count my regular cleaning activity in my daily energy expenditure. I only log exercise that actually raises my heart rate for a sustained amount of time.
  • Loftearmen
    Loftearmen Posts: 380
    Cleaning your house is just living life, not exercising. The trend I have noticed is that people who are fat try to count everything as exercise to make an excuse for why they didn't get on a treadmill or lift weights. I deal with diabetic patients who try to play this card on me all the time and they're still going to die from complications of their diabetes.... Even though they did the laundry. People who are fit realize that cleaning up is just part of their day and should be included in their daily caloric expenditure.

    I disagree with the premise here that "fat" people are making excuses by logging such things. I think whether or not you log calories for cleaning, yard work, etc. depend on where you're at on your fitness journey. Someone that has basically been completely sedentary and works up a sweat doing work they perhaps used to pay someone to do should certainly log that activity if it helps motivate them be more active. Alternately, if this is normal activity, and/or if you and more fit and routinely have a more structured workout program, logging such things may be pushing the envelope.

    What I don't understand is the belief that the only time you burn calories is if you go to a gym. That seems totally odd to my way of thinking. Some of us NEVER go to gyms. Activity is activity. If, for example, I go out and chop wood on my property, I guarantee you I expend more energy than half the people on this site that go to the gym and go round and round on the little "hamster wheels" you call exercise machines.

    Whether or not you like it, most fat people got to where they are by making excuses. It is also for that reason that most of them will remain overweight. So fostering the idea that they can log some sort of activity everyday without having to go to the gym is dangerous because many of them will do just that. You must remember that just because a person is an adult doesn't mean that they are mature or are able to be honest with themselves. I don't mean this of all people who are overweight, just the population in general.

    Activity is activity; however, if you do certain activities on a regular basis (cleaning, lawn work, etc...) and you are still overweight, weak, out of shape, unhealthy, etc.... then obviously those activities aren't doing it for you are they? Thus, you need to separate exercise from your other activities. You probably have a different perspective on this subject because you don't work with people who have destroyed their own bodies all day like I do.
  • TXtstorm
    TXtstorm Posts: 163 Member
    I don't log anything as exercise unless it is exertion beyond that of my average everyday activity level. I figure that unless it is outside of that, it is accounted for in the activity level multiplier applied to my BMR to generate a TDEE. I also do not usually eat back ALL of my exercise calories for a day, though it's certainly not unusual for me to reclaim SOME of them.

    I'm on my feet several hours a day, up and down stairs, walking hallways, squatting, bending and lifting throughout my day at work. I also spend a portion of my work day at my desk and computer. The I get home and stand/walk for an hour or two making and cleaning up after dinner and I do a variety of household chores and laundry and the like. I live on 2+ acres and may be out walking around on my property or doing light or short-lived gardening tasks. I have found that this seems to match my historical calorie intake and loss figures in a way that puts me into a lightly to moderately active range. Heck, in less than an hour one day this week I had to move over 1200 pounds about 36 pounds at a time, but this is nothing I log as exercise, because I normally do this once or twice during my workweek.

    I do log walking for the express purpose of exercising, working out with weights and resistance or suspension training, sustained periods of heavy outdoor work (shoveling snow, toting bags of soil amendments), riding my bike, etc. These are extra, beyond what a normal day is like for me. If I were to log cleaning tasks at home, it would only be heavy-duty tasks done over a sustained period of time.

    To me, the key to logging exercise, at least if one is going to "eat back" part or all of those calories, is whether or not the activity logged is over and above what might happen in your average day. If you have a literal all day desk job and your normal home life consists of spending most of your downtime in bed or sitting on the couch but today you decide to spend 30 minutes scrubbing the floor or pulling weeds, by all means log it! But be careful what calorie burn you assign to such things... it seems to me that the MFP entries for them are often overgenerous. Log more calories that you really likely burned and then eat them back and you've just derailed your progress.

    Just think it through and be careful that you're not deceiving yourself.
  • tarayatesgosse
    tarayatesgosse Posts: 26
    I have a very active job and so on my days off I don't work as hard as I would if I was at work and since I clean on my days off I think it makes up the calories I would burn had I been working. Occasionally I will log them if I am moving very fast or sweating and doing it for more then 15 minutes ONLY if I have already worked that day.
  • carriej82
    carriej82 Posts: 123 Member
    Q1. - Do you track your House Cleaning as Exercise? Yes or No
    No, I don't count things such as, but not limited to: Being a normal person.
    Q2 - How Many Calories did you burn "Cleaning House" last week? :smile:

    None

    This, I don't count house cleaning because that was part of my activity level that I chose when setting up my MFP account. I figure if I may burn any extra calories I don't count them I just take it as a bonus
  • jennys528
    jennys528 Posts: 1
    I do a deep clean once every other week where it takes 3-4 hours (vac, dust, wipe walls, scrub, etc) so I do count that. I don't count laundry, dishes, toilets- the stuff that's done daily. But if its something that takes effort, of course it counts!! I was not losing weight because I wasn't intaking enough calories, so making sure you are as accurate as possible is important!

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