Do you count house/yard work or shopping as exercising??

ainsleybtown
ainsleybtown Posts: 484
in Fitness and Exercise
I never do, but wonder if it would count or should count?
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Replies

  • knightreader
    knightreader Posts: 813 Member
    cleaning the house, no. mowing the law, yes. my rule is that if i do something around the house, and should shower afterwards b/c of sweating so much, i count it. on my feed i see all types of stuff that people count...cleaning, food prep, stuff like that. to each his/her own, i guess. for me, if i should shower after, it counts.
  • pinkraynedropjacki
    pinkraynedropjacki Posts: 3,027 Member
    I do...but then not many people I know dance while doing housework. I can get my heart rate up & over 180 so I'm getting a workout. Squats while doing the floors as well. Shopping I don't count but the walking 5km there & the 5km back I do.
  • highervibes
    highervibes Posts: 2,219 Member
    No I don't count that.
  • TS65
    TS65 Posts: 1,024 Member
    if it doesn't make you sweat, it's not exercise.

    If I'm shoveling manure, digging holes for trees - yes. If I'm raking. no
  • krhn
    krhn Posts: 781 Member
    Yes, exercise is exercise! No point neglecting it because if you are in a caloric deficit in the first place, the nutrients given to your body are already at their bare minimum, no point in further dropping the nutritional content as it can cause your body to jump into survival mode eg. Starvation mode.
  • deannakittygirl
    deannakittygirl Posts: 228 Member
    yard work yes I do. the cleaning, shopping and food prep nope.
  • niftyafterfifty
    niftyafterfifty Posts: 338 Member
    When I spend 4 hours outside mowing and gardening, you better believe I'm going to count it. It takes the place of a "regular" workout. I sure don't have the strength, energy, or time to do both.
  • Seaduck79
    Seaduck79 Posts: 35 Member
    Walking around the office, no. Walking briskly 10 minutes each way to and from the bus stop, yes.
    Cleaning things, shopping, doing laundry, no. Mowing the lawn, yes. If my pulse/respiration are taxed significantly for more than a few minutes at a time, I count it.
  • Tbias78
    Tbias78 Posts: 120 Member
    If I'm "Spring Cleaning" to the point that I'm scrubbing everything in the house and sweating like a pig then yes I count it, normal straightening up, NO. Yard work I count if my heart rate is up... Shopping, no I don't count. Like someone else said, If I need to shower when I'm done then yes I count it...
  • lorieric5037
    lorieric5037 Posts: 97
    Mowing the lawn & gardening I count as exercise...housecleaning, shopping - nope.
  • aa1440
    aa1440 Posts: 956 Member
    If I sweat during yard work I count it. I don't count house work.
  • lina1131
    lina1131 Posts: 2,246 Member
    Unless I am exercising (treadmill, elliptical, running outside, weight training) I do not log it.

    We went to the zoo today and walked around...I did not log it.

    There was this one girl on my news feed once that logged driving. I was like WTF? lol
  • leeanneowens
    leeanneowens Posts: 319 Member
    No, I don't count housework or shopping as exercise. I don't do yard work (I leave that for my dear hubby). :smile:
  • skinnytayy
    skinnytayy Posts: 459
    I count yard work ... But then again, I live on nearly 3 acres of land, have a garden that could probably feed 5 huge families, and I do lots of strenuous yardwork. I don't count housework .. mainly because I usually poke around doing it & get distracted so much with other stuff. Plus my day to day housework is pretty small so it wouldn't amount to much anyways.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    I personally do not log cleaning or shopping as exercise. Now if I had a yard, I might log stuff like mowing the law, where I actually break into a sweat.

    I think it also depends on how many calories you're eating. If around 1200, then you might want to log it. If say (like me) around 1600 or higher, then you probably don't need to log it.
  • TArnold2012
    TArnold2012 Posts: 929 Member
    Nope
  • phjorg
    phjorg Posts: 252 Member
    I don't count anything unless it's actively pushing my limits. Otherwise it's just living life.
  • fitplease
    fitplease Posts: 647 Member
    I will only count it if it's major work. Otherwise, things can get pretty tedious as I try to log all my habits.
  • tinana_RN
    tinana_RN Posts: 541 Member
    Yardwork yes, housework no. Regular shopping no, flea market walking yes! Big mall shopping, sometimes yes if we're spending the day walking around- just depends on the nature of the visit... lol. And no to food prep, etc... that cracks me up.
  • CarmenSRT
    CarmenSRT Posts: 843 Member
    My husband and me have BodyMedia Fit Links. Everything we do is logged by the devices, whether it's formal exercise or pruning bushes. Then BodyMedia tells My Fitness Pal what we burned, MFP adjust our calories based on the calories burned and MFP tells BodyMedia what we ate.

    The armbands take the guesswork out of what to log. :happy:
  • fitplease
    fitplease Posts: 647 Member
    There was this one girl on my news feed once that logged driving. I was like WTF? lol

    If she lives in one of those high congestion zones, I can see her point. Stop and go traffic with a manual transmission would do it! LOL
  • Sjenny5891
    Sjenny5891 Posts: 717 Member
    I never do, but wonder if it would count or should count?

    It depends on how you have your goals set. If you are set on Sedentary, maybe.

    I personally have mine set on Sed because I don't know what I'm doing at work each day and it is easier for me to add in the physical jobs than remembering to subtract the desk job......
    I don't add the 15 minute dishes or food prep, but will add shopping if we are out walking for 2 hours or more ( as half the time we are out though. you have to figure you are not walking for a good portion of the time unless you can do a marathon shopping spree knowing exactly what you are getting)
    Yard work is more physical. I count gardening if I'm pulling weeds or picking. I don't count snapping beans or playing cards.
  • phjorg
    phjorg Posts: 252 Member
    There was this one girl on my news feed once that logged driving. I was like WTF? lol

    If she lives in one of those high congestion zones, I can see her point. Stop and go traffic with a manual transmission would do it! LOL
    I drive a standard. there is no exertion difference. the calorie burn is the same as sitting around doing nothing.
  • 5ftnFun
    5ftnFun Posts: 948 Member
    I only count deliberate exercise as exercise. Anything that I do above and beyond that is active or physical I just consider a bonus.
  • Querian
    Querian Posts: 419 Member
    If I was doing major yard work (back when I had a yard) I would probably count it. Housecleaning I can't think of anything I do that is taxing enough to warrant me logging it. But I do have a Fitbit which adjusts for all my activity so I guess if I was lightly active while picking up around the house the fitbit would capture it for me. In fqact since I got the fitbit I even stopped logging my walks (and I walk a lot) because it is good at adjusting calories based on steps without me having to enter it.

    But really it's up to you. I know some of the people who log what some might consider silly things have their settings at sedentary when really they are probably more active than that so they need to log those things in order to increase their daily activities to what it should be. :flowerforyou:
  • stumpycow
    stumpycow Posts: 94 Member
    Yard work, gardening, mowing the lawn- yes; cleaning the house- no! Except scrubbing the bathroom, I hate scrubbing the toilet & tub so yes. It's like a teeny tiny incentive lol
  • Pangea250
    Pangea250 Posts: 965 Member
    Routine, mundane stuff? No. Working work? Yes. I don't log housework, but I do log mowing the lawn & heavy gardening.
  • kcaffee1
    kcaffee1 Posts: 759 Member
    If it is a regular part of my daily routine.. no, unless it is just being added in. (like when I first started making my drinks in the evening for the next day. After a couple of weeks, I quite logging that.) However, cleaning I log, because it is not an every day occurrence, same with the yard work I do. Walking around shopping I might or might not log separately, depends on how much I wind up having to add to the cart. If it gets to be heavier than my book bag, then I'll log it, else it gets lumped in with the rest of the general walking I pick up off the pedometer at the end of the day.
  • awake4777
    awake4777 Posts: 190 Member
    I count ABnormal activity. If I walk around the store for an hour and I normally would do that I wouldn't count it. If I'm doing something in housework that keeps me on my feet for at least 30 minutes and it is abnormal activity I count it. If you don't count it your body may be counting it so pay attention to the scales.

    I'm not a good sweater so I can't go by that, but when I was younger me and a friend would go to a sauna where she'd sweat like a pig and I wouldn't. Both of us just sitting there. Maybe I eat too much salt.

    If you weigh 300 lbs and are not accustomed to being active, I would count everything. I find that the more weight I lose the more active I become. I think you have to pay attention to your body.

    Good luck.
  • Tysonlovesweights
    Tysonlovesweights Posts: 139 Member
    I would count something like chopping wood, but regular yard work stuff like planting, cutting the grass, raking, etc, takes little energy on my part. I am not a little guy, so pushing the mower is pretty easy :) i might log it if i spent half a day with the wheelbarrow moving soil or planting tress or something of that level.

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