How Strict are You??

I don't count housework or cleaning, I dont even count taking my dogs for a walk, I feel like thats just everyday life. The only time I count my calories is when I work out and go off of my HRM.

I count every calorie I eat but only the calories I burn doing regular exercise and HEAVY household cleaning...not the just picking up all the millions of toys everywhere.

I count meals/snacks, I dont log everything (taking a bite tasting while making dinner) etc and yes samples at the store are calorie free :laugh:

I dont think it should be logged unless its an exercise, logging 300 cals for scrap booking it not exactly exercise and its going to cause them to have problems becuase they arent getting an accurate calories burned for exercising

I do add every single thing I eat. I only add my exercise calories because that is something I wouldnt normally do. Cooking, cleaning, shopping....etc ....... are things I do everyday anyway so I do not add them.

I don't think it's a bad idea to track every little thing when you first start (keeping in mind jrich1's note about double counting), it gets you used to thinking about what things "cost".

These days I just count what is above and beyond normal activity for exercise, but I log every last little thing. If I can't log it (serving size? contents?), I don't eat it...makes passing up those samples easy.

Strict about intake calories (the teaspoon of mustard, the oil on the bottom of the pan filled with spinach and garlic, the two tootsie roll pieces.... just every bit going IN.) I didn't get this weight doing less activity than I'm doing now: I did it by eating poorly and moving less.

I only count exercise I have to change shoes/clothes to do, not my normal activities. I clean normally, but don't normally herd students through a two hour maze while picking stuff up and lugging it around....which I entered as "cleaning." I also don't normally move households, so I counted that activity.

I log just about everything in my food diary.... I don't always log spices, though I am just now starting to at least log in spice mixes (homemade taco seasoning, spaghetti sauce spice mix, etc.) I don't log an extra bite here and there while making supper (and I do mean, one or two bites, not constant grazing). I don't always log calorie free drinks (tea, black coffee, random diet drinks) but I try to do that too.

In the exercise log, I mostly record anything that is meant as exercise. If I spend a day walking around (at the zoo or similar) I will log 1/4 - 1/2 of that. If I am moving heavy furniture or boxes around or doing heavy duty cleaning or yardwork, I would log that as well (yardwork is not a usual activity for me... and if I did it, my allergies would declare I couldn't do anything else I'd planned for exercise that day!)

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I don't have it in me to log everything all the time so I have decided to skip the things I don't struggle with as much which is water and exercise. Since I do struggle constantly with my eating habits I am diligent to record everything I eat, even if I don't get to finishing my diary until the next day or even 2 days later (once in a great while). If it goes in my mouth and contains calories, I will log it.

I religiously log my food and intentional exercise, meaning a workout. If I am doing serious cleaning I put my HRM on to make sure it is high enough to be a real workout. This helps me get more done and I burn more calories than normal. If I don't put on my HRM for house work, then I don't count it. I stop, talk, sit, clean, etc unless I have the HRM on......:-)

I always get in more than enough water but I usually log it also. I also under value my calories burned on purpose because this site really exaggerates actual calorie burned.

I am similar to most - I log almost everything I eat, as somebody mentioned, if it is a 20-30 cal little piece of something and I have not previously found it in the database, etc, I'll just skip.

I only log gym exercise (or workout dvd, etc), and actually I log cardio only. I read an article here posted by someone a while back that strength training increases your heart rate because of pressure, not same way as cardio. So I log the actual exercises I do (weights and reps), but not the calories (like circuit training from database). I am not sure if it is right or wrong, it's just how I have been doing it. I understand your body burns calories repairing muscle tissue after strength training, but I don't know how many calories or how to estimate that.

When I first started, I was eating all or majority of my calories back... but then it was suggested to me by a trainer at the gym to eat 1,200 cal no matter how much I exercised... I almost had a heart-attack... I thought it was so low... I had a doctor's appointment that week and asked her. She said it was ok!!! She told me once I reach healthy weight, I would need about 1,600 to maintain. So I am still trying to figure this part out... I am not able to eat 1,200, I don;t find it to be enough, I am more comfortable with what MFP give me - 1,500.... If I am hungry, I would eat some of my calories back, but most of the time I do not nowadays... We'll see how this works.

(Again, this is just my personal situation, just sharing I always find it helpful to see what others are doing.

I log most things, but mustard or vinegar, no. Extra green veggies, not always. I do count housework, but when I do the housework, I do squats to get the dishes in and out of the dishwasher, and like toe touches into the laundry basket to fold clothes, stuff like that.