How do I log this?

IMO trying to say cleaning is exercise is just cheating yourself.

If in doubt, aerobics

IMO trying to say cleaning is exercise is just cheating yourself.

I don't frickin' think so! You ever gotten down on your knees and scrubbed the hell out of your bath or shower? You ever vacuumed a whole house? Scrubbed toilets, washed mirrors and windows, the dishes, the laundry (towels, comforter covers, sheets, floor mats), swept around the outside of the house, weeded your garden, mowed the lawn, raked, edged, trimmed bushes, cut branches or planted a garden?

I understand a good deal of what I just said is more like yard work than cleaning, but being a home owner is a full time job and it's hard as hell.

ETA: I just checked and you're 20. I'll give you ten to fifteen years to figure it out.

The only "cleaning" calories I wouldn't log would be if I just did the dishes and that's it. Or I just picked up the living room and that's it. Cleaning and home ownership is for the brave, responsible and adult. I'm hoping your comment indicates you don't do much cleaning or that you're too young to understand what cleaning can entail.

IMO trying to say cleaning is exercise is just cheating yourself.

I don't frickin' think so! You ever gotten down on your knees and scrubbed the hell out of your bath or shower? You ever vacuumed a whole house? Scrubbed toilets, washed mirrors and windows, the dishes, the laundry (towels, comforter covers, sheets, floor mats), swept around the outside of the house, weeded your garden, mowed the lawn, raked, edged, trimmed bushes, cut branches or planted a garden?

I understand a good deal of what I just said is more like yard work than cleaning, but being a home owner is a full time job and it's hard as hell.

ETA: I just checked and you're 20. I'll give you ten to fifteen years to figure it out.

The only "cleaning" calories I wouldn't log would be if I just did the dishes and that's it. Or I just picked up the living room and that's it. Cleaning and home ownership is for the brave, responsible and adult. I'm hoping your comment indicates you don't do much cleaning or that you're too young to understand what cleaning can entail.

Yes to all of me doing that and I would never even consider adding that as exercise. Just like I posted to someone else, I was moving 50 pound bags of mulch around for an hour today and the thought of counting that as exercise never crossed my mind.

Oh and don't even attempt the holier than thou approach saying "you're 20". As if that means anything to the amount of work and cleaning I've done. You can go ahead and eat an extra 500 calories for mowing the lawn if you want, but don't cry when you don't lose weight that week.

IMO trying to say cleaning is exercise is just cheating yourself.

I don't frickin' think so! You ever gotten down on your knees and scrubbed the hell out of your bath or shower? You ever vacuumed a whole house? Scrubbed toilets, washed mirrors and windows, the dishes, the laundry (towels, comforter covers, sheets, floor mats), swept around the outside of the house, weeded your garden, mowed the lawn, raked, edged, trimmed bushes, cut branches or planted a garden?

I understand a good deal of what I just said is more like yard work than cleaning, but being a home owner is a full time job and it's hard as hell.

ETA: I just checked and you're 20. I'll give you ten to fifteen years to figure it out.

The only "cleaning" calories I wouldn't log would be if I just did the dishes and that's it. Or I just picked up the living room and that's it. Cleaning and home ownership is for the brave, responsible and adult. I'm hoping your comment indicates you don't do much cleaning or that you're too young to understand what cleaning can entail.

Yes to all of me doing that and I would never even consider adding that as exercise. Just like I posted to someone else, I was moving 50 pound bags of mulch around for an hour today and the thought of counting that as exercise never crossed my mind.

Oh and don't even attempt the holier than thou approach saying "you're 20". As if that means anything to the amount of work and cleaning I've done. You can go ahead and eat an extra 500 calories for mowing the lawn if you want, but don't cry when you don't lose weight that week.

Well, guess what? It is. You're just that amazing of a person to not consider it or not need it, but lifting 50 pound weights for an hour sounds like more than most people's trip to the gym. I mean, really? Lifting 50 lbs. continuously for an hour and you don't consider that exercise. I went to the gym for 30 minutes yesterday and intensely lifted 35, 40, and 45 pounds in circuit. Should I not have logged that?

IMO trying to say cleaning is exercise is just cheating yourself.

I don't frickin' think so! You ever gotten down on your knees and scrubbed the hell out of your bath or shower? You ever vacuumed a whole house? Scrubbed toilets, washed mirrors and windows, the dishes, the laundry (towels, comforter covers, sheets, floor mats), swept around the outside of the house, weeded your garden, mowed the lawn, raked, edged, trimmed bushes, cut branches or planted a garden?

I understand a good deal of what I just said is more like yard work than cleaning, but being a home owner is a full time job and it's hard as hell.

ETA: I just checked and you're 20. I'll give you ten to fifteen years to figure it out.

The only "cleaning" calories I wouldn't log would be if I just did the dishes and that's it. Or I just picked up the living room and that's it. Cleaning and home ownership is for the brave, responsible and adult. I'm hoping your comment indicates you don't do much cleaning or that you're too young to understand what cleaning can entail.

Yes to all of me doing that and I would never even consider adding that as exercise. Just like I posted to someone else, I was moving 50 pound bags of mulch around for an hour today and the thought of counting that as exercise never crossed my mind.

Oh and don't even attempt the holier than thou approach saying "you're 20". As if that means anything to the amount of work and cleaning I've done. You can go ahead and eat an extra 500 calories for mowing the lawn if you want, but don't cry when you don't lose weight that week.

Well, guess what? It is. You're just that amazing of a person to not consider it or not need it, but lifting 50 pound weights for an hour sounds like more than most people's trip to the gym. I mean, really? Lifting 50 lbs. continuously for an hour and you don't consider that exercise. I went to the gym for 30 minutes yesterday and intensely lifted 35, 40, and 45 pounds in circuit. Should I not have logged that?

I'm curious as to how you calculated calories burned for lifting weights

IMO trying to say cleaning is exercise is just cheating yourself.

I don't frickin' think so! You ever gotten down on your knees and scrubbed the hell out of your bath or shower? You ever vacuumed a whole house? Scrubbed toilets, washed mirrors and windows, the dishes, the laundry (towels, comforter covers, sheets, floor mats), swept around the outside of the house, weeded your garden, mowed the lawn, raked, edged, trimmed bushes, cut branches or planted a garden?

I understand a good deal of what I just said is more like yard work than cleaning, but being a home owner is a full time job and it's hard as hell.

ETA: I just checked and you're 20. I'll give you ten to fifteen years to figure it out.

The only "cleaning" calories I wouldn't log would be if I just did the dishes and that's it. Or I just picked up the living room and that's it. Cleaning and home ownership is for the brave, responsible and adult. I'm hoping your comment indicates you don't do much cleaning or that you're too young to understand what cleaning can entail.

Isn't cleaning, housework, yard work, etc just a part of living an "active" lifestyle (vs sedentary)? I mean, do whatever you want, but it seems weird to me.

He never said that cleaning the house wasn't hard work.... he just said that counting it as actually exercising (aka: something more than your "active" lifestyle) is cheating yourself out of those calories that you naturally burned in your day to day life.

*shrug* People get so butthurt sometimes.

Exactly

I wear a HRM and cut that in half, typically, depending on time and intensity. In the past, I've gone off of lifting books like New Rules, which suggests you eat back 250 for an intense, 30-minute work out. Again, you're young and just must not need to count things like that. I'm getting old and fat and hungry, and like to eat back some of my workouts. I also have a pretty low calorie goal, so I like to eat back something for each exercise. I don't at all care to debate my workouts.

I do care about giving caloric credit to myself for a decent expenditure of energy. For example, like where this started, I consider the way I clean a decent expenditure of energy and think people deserve at least a little bit of a break on their calorie restriction if they've earned it.

Well as the old and wise 31 year old man that you are, you should know that HRM are not at all accurate for weight training. So you are basically taking a random number and making it even more random by cutting it in half.

I've done the exact same routine multiple times with a HRM just to test this and I get results 100s of calories apart.

I wear a HRM and cut that in half, typically, depending on time and intensity. In the past, I've gone off of lifting books like New Rules, which suggests you eat back 250 for an intense, 30-minute work out. Again, you're young and just must not need to count things like that. I'm getting old and fat and hungry, and like to eat back some of my workouts. I also have a pretty low calorie goal, so I like to eat back something for each exercise. I don't at all care to debate my workouts.

I do care about giving caloric credit to myself for a decent expenditure of energy. For example, like where this started, I consider the way I clean a decent expenditure of energy and think people deserve at least a little bit of a break on their calorie restriction if they've earned it.

If you're cleaning vigorously on a regular basis, I wouldn't count this as exercise since it's part of what you normally do, and your lifestyle selection (sedentary, light, etc) is already including effort like this. It would not be above and beyond your normal activity level.

If it's working for you, then great! What works for you doesn't necessarily work for other people though, so there WILL be people who disagree with you.

Sheesh. First time back in a long while and I see some are still throwing their toys out their pram! Personally, if the work is well over and above what would form part of your "normal" routine, then I would most certainly count it. If, on the other hand it formed part of your "normal" routine (say lugging 50 lbs bags of mulch) then I would NOT count it. However, someone with a normal daily active lifestyle would and should have a much higher calorie allowance to cover their basic needs. For instance, because of health issues, I am normally very sedentary, but - because I am currently on high dose steroids - I am bouncing around like a 20 year old (I'm in my 60s). So - yes - I fully intend to take exercise credit for the additional movement I am doing whilst my steroid head is on.

Clearly opinions will lean both ways on this subject...

Since you are newish I will share a general truth about MFP that most folks do tend to agree on:

The calorie estimates are often way off and normally run on the high side of what a lot of people actually think they burn.

I tend to ride two or three hours a day and it puts that down as about 2000 calories burned at my weight and pace. It's most certainly not 2000 calories burned for me so I take them with sort of a grain of salt.

Personally I don't add every little thing because I don't want to imagine I am going to lose more and then be disappointed when it doesn't happen. Some people like to imagine that a heart rate monitor will tell them how many calories they burn and that might be good for some cardio stuff but even then it's not a factual number, just an estimate based on averages of which you may or may not be a part.

There's nothing at all wrong with logging every bit of movement, just keep in mind that the numbers will often be higher than the actual number burned.

Not trying to discourage you from logging, I still put in my bike rides, but I don't eat an extra pound of bacon after the ride even though it says that would be dandy.

I have 1290 calories. On the weekends I will take 6 mile walks. I don't try to eat back my
Calories for the sake of eating them back but if I'm hungry and want a small snack that may put me over by 50-100 calories I will allow myself to have it because I know that a 6 mile walk has to atleast be over that 100.