Does anybody add house cleaning to exercise?

I only add anything that is above and beyond my usual daily cleaning, and then I only add it under the "light cleaning" category. I don't think that's cheating.

Not at all. Calories burned are calories burned. No matter how you do it. I don't know about 1500. That seems like a lot but I would give myself a hundred or two at least.

Sometimes I do, but I've noticed that since I have my activity level set to somewhat active that it covers most household cleaning so unless I am breaking a sweat and getting my heart rate up I don't log it.

Also, be sure on an activity like this, especially a long one, to subtract what you would have burned anyway if you just sat on the couch - somewhere between 60 and 100 calories usually or you will be double logging your calories.

Lastly, if you counted it as 6 hours straight of vigorous cleaning that would mean non stop high heart rate cleaning - so stopping and folding some laundry or dusting or something lower vigor than say scrubbing the floor - you would be overestimating the burn for those times.

I would log it, but I would log it in as about 500 or 600 and not 1500. (roughly 100 to 125 extra calories per hour)

- Anything you do outside of your normal daily activity (as set in the MFP settings) SHOULD be logged since it is calories burned that are not yet accounted for - just make sure you take into account the above so you're not overeating or overestimating.

Sometimes I will clean as an exercise in itself - I will do everything while jogging, high stepping as I do the dishes and adding in squats etc and then I log what my hrm says minus some of the calories it says I burned. Other times, if I have spent hours like you are stating, I will log some as exercise but not nearly what my hrm states or what mfp states. I don't log my normal cleaning though unless I'm adding in the jogging etc...

I don't think it's cheating when I do it because HELLO its hard work!!!

if it is the daily regular stuff then - no. if it is the weekend clean up and i'm spending a good amount of energy and building sweat, then yes. there are times when i just zoom from one thing to another and go for an hour. i'm sweating when i'm down - i love counting those! it is a real workout!

i also sit at my job during the week most of the day. so a big clean up is being more active and should count for something.

I do not add calories for cleaning. I was fat when I cleaned before, which means I must not have been burning much. Now if I did a ridiculously hard clean, like scrubbing tubs or something...I would consider it...but only put in 1/2 the amount of time.

I was just curious if anybody added house cleaning to exercise. I've been cleaning like a mad woman all day for 6 hours (I have a 6 bedroom + regular rooms like the kitchen, bathrooms ect., plus stairs) and I entered the mintues in and it gave me a riduculous amount of calories burned such as around 1500. Is this cheating?

You will have to back out the calories you would have burned at rest to get the extra calories burned from exercise. To do this take your Maintenance calories divide by 24 to get cals per hour then divide by 60 to get cals per minute then multiply by the number of minutes exercised. so if your maintenance calories are 1800 this would give you 1.25 cals/min (1800/24/60) so over 6 hours you would have burned 450 calories at rest (1.25*60*6) so you should enter 1050 in MFP not the full 1500. this 450 would already be accounted for in your daily caloric goal on MFP. If your maintenance calories are even higher than you would deduct even more from the total.

nope I don't add house cleaning - I'm a SAHM so it's what I'm suppose to do anyways whether I'm in shape or out of shape! lol

I just keep in mind that I can consume a bit more cals for the day.

I use to add cleaning and grocery shopping but than I thought about how food cals may not be 100% correct so I consider them my safety net cals. So if I happen to be over my cal count for the day, I know that I have some cals to fall back on. But if I were to input those cals it'll probably have me eat more than I should.

I do.

I've read research that showed that people who do strenuous housecleaning and believe that it is exercise actually increase the health benefits of doing it. The study was conducted on Latina housemaids who worked in hotels. There were two interesting findings from the research.

First, the more you believe that the work is actually a workout the more health benefit you gain from the work.

Second, you wont burn any extra calories by sitting around imagining that you're cleaning; you have to actually do the work.

I count my cleaning if I do more than a half hour, if it's fairly strenuous, and if I think about it and decide that it's exercise while I'm doing it, per the research above.

It was reported on NPR, last September I believe, though I don't have the link to the report.

I never add anything as exercise other than walking I wouldn't do otherwise, or specific cardio and strength training I plan ahead of time. Everything else like gardening, cleaning, walks to the store, etc. I consider part of my BMR.

Never. One time I used my heart rate monitor while I washed my car. I burned 100 calories. Interesting to know, but a little bit of washing dishes, vacuuming, and dusting doesn't break me into a sweat.

I did today for the first time. Probably just because I scrubbed my floors instead of doing my workout video before work this morning. I think getting the house ready for Christmas guests burns more calories, LOL!! I didn't use my heartrate monitor so I chose the "light" effort ... the other one just seemed to much!