Cleaning(Light/Moderate)(Heavy/Vigorous) What's the differen

If you want to cook the books in your exercise diary, feel free to do so. Don't forget you can log billiards, fishing, and playing darts too.

I never log chores unless it isn't part of my regular schedule of doing the dishes, mopping, running errands, walking to the bus stop etc. Unless you have a maid and are one with the couch all day, this is just going about your daily routine. To me the amount of activity like this you do determines whether you are sedentary, lightly active, very active etc. I do think it would reasonable to count the extraordinary things like spending the day doing hard labour such fencing in your yard, moving, planting trees, etc.

Calories Burned Doing Housework Calculations based on a 150 pound person.

Activity

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#Of Minutes

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Calories Burned

They missed out one:

Putting duvet back into duvet cover

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60

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8,948,678

:mad:

The effort I have to muster to get round to doing some of these activities surely must mean they burn a thousand calories, right?

To the OP, I'd set your activity level to lightly active, as others have recommended.

Yay! My worthless $.01 $.01 and a question!

I housekeep at the hospital, with basically a 15,000+ sq. ft. building to maintain on my own. In an 8 hour shift, I lift between 600-800lbs of dirty linen (in 25-40lb increments ) and a dumpster full of trash from 90+ 13gallon cans. About half the floor care is mopping (with swiffer style mops, they did away with string mops for hygenic purposes and shoulder injury reduction) and half vacuuming which all basically gets done daily. Lots of dusting and high/low surface wiping daily as well as overhead dusting once or twice a week. When I first started, it was almost 7 miles of walking per shift (according to the ped on my phone) but since I've honed my routine it's dropped to 5.5-6 miles. I work M-F 15:00-23:30. I also workout 4-5 days per week (I also keep my gym time to M-F) doing 5x5 with 20 minutes interval elliptical cardio MWF, and 30+ minutes of the same cardio on T/Th. When I'm not gyming or working I can be kind of a slouch. Okay, basically a total slouch 2 days/week.

I have my activity level set to "active" and my estimated exercise at 40 minutes x 4 days. This is giving me 1940 calories for a 2lb/week loss...which is more like 1.5, but I'm not complaining. I actually reduced my activity level to "light" a while back which dropped me to 1600 calories (to increase weight loss), like the Good Housekeeping/Self magazine "ideal" numbers, but I felt I was selling myself short after a bit and chnaged it back. I'm having massive hair shedding issues and read that too low of a deficit could make that worse so I freaked and felt I needed more calories. My TDEE is around 2800. I don't record my exercise here or eat back my calories.

Was I cheating my body when I dropped my cals lower? Does it seem like I'm on the right path again with numbers now? Activity level seem correct? The 1900 range definitely helps with hunger and I'm hoping it will also help to minimize shedding (I've also sought med advice for the hair issues). I'd love to find a balance in which I don't end up fat and bald for the rest of my life.

ETA: I'm 245 and would like to get to a strong 160-165 or so.

. I'm having massive hair shedding issues and read that too low of a deficit could make that worse so I freaked and felt I needed more calories. My TDEE is around 2800. I don't record my exercise here or eat back my calories.

Was I cheating my body when I dropped my cals lower? Does it seem like I'm on the right path again with numbers now? Activity level seem correct? The 1900 range definitely helps with hunger and I'm hoping it will also help to minimize shedding (I've also sought med advice for the hair issues). I'd love to find a balance in which I don't end up fat and bald for the rest of my life.

ETA: I'm 245 and would like to get to a strong 160-165 or so.

Your TDEE is about 2800. You were eating 1600 calories. That is approximately a 43% calorie deficit. Way too aggressive, and as you found out, not healthy. A typical deficit should be 20%. The very obese can afford to take a bigger cut, with 85 pounds still to lose you might consider a 25% cut. So, 25% of 2800 would be 2100 calories per day. Don't eat back exercise calories. This % cut will have to get smaller when you get closer to goal weight.

If you count cleaning your house as exercise, you don't understand exercise.

Apparently you don't clean like I clean. Anytime I'm sweating, grunting, and end up tired... heck I call that "exercise". Bending, stooping, hauling, running up and down stairs, etc. - basically calisthenics. Now if someone is pansy-a$$ing their way around the house maybe folding a load of laundry and washing a few dishes, then, no, that's not exercise.


OP - If you are up and around most of the day, then you can account for your "normal" level of activity in the "Activity" part of the Goals calculation of MFP. For example, instead of "sedentary", you might say "lightly active" ... maybe "moderately", if you go up and down stairs frequently, etc. But unless you're actually making yourself sweat, I wouldn't try to log it as exercise - imo.

I am totally happy with my results. I am in a hold pattern as I have found in the past. I have only had 3 cheat days in 148 days. I took on MFP seriously, and it has taken off of me!

Cleaning is not exercise.

It burns some calories yes, but many things do. It is not exercise.

I only log cleaning calories when I do something out of the ordinary that takes a min of 45 minutes such as cleaning an entire large bathroom, cleaning carpets, moving furniture. I will log walking at a slow pace if I go shopping for the same amount of time plus.
Neither of which amount to much so really a waste of time doing so...200 calories maybe.
But it is also better than sitting in front of the computer or TV.
So it's basically all up to the individual.

When I'm at the sink doing dishes, or loading laundry in the washer, or sweeping, mopping, whatever, I'm playing some fast and loud music and dancing or jogging in place or stretching or something, so my version of cleaning does include exercise. While it's not "normal" exercise, I'm working up a sweat, my muscles burn and my heart rate is up. I count every bit of it too