Do you track everything?

I think that if it's something you do on a daily basis, it is figured into the lifestyle question they ask when you are figuring your daily calories. For me, cleaning isn't something I do on a regular (gross, I know) so I log it if I do it for more than 15 minutes at a time. Obviously I log all the extra exercise I do such as running or stuff at the gym. I guess it would be up to you. If it feels like exercise to you and not really part of your daily routine, then log it!

I track my cycling to work and if i go for a walk longer then 20 mins. Like going shopping with the girls or something.

I agree- the intential exercises are what I track...if you are tracking cleaning, picking up kids... that's normal stuff..and not really building muscles or pushing yourself physically (and kind of cheating yourself into improving).

I agree--I only track what I consider to be a "formal" workout. Once the weather warms up I'll track bike riding to/from work and on the trails, but I will track them as lighter exercise. Cannot wait to get the bike out!

According to my Nutritionist only excerise is logged as exercise everything else is normal activity that your body is used to and if you set up your profile correctly to reflect your active level then that is already counted so if you logged it again and ate back any of those calories then you would be over eating.

If I put on my "gym clothes" and make an extra effort to burn calories, I track it. If it is just a part of daily life, I don't track it.

No way. Those activities are part of normal life and are included in your activity/lifestyle setting, even if you selected sedentary. I only count dedicated exercise.

Well, there just was another thread where feelings ended up flying high. I think the OP was a little more judgemental about tracking everything than you are with your neutral question, but you may be getting people who respond here whose feelings got bruised in the other thread.

The upshot from that discussion is that it's easy to be dismissive of people who track "everyday life" activities, but giving it some thought it turns out it really depends on the individual. A reasonably healthy individual who is say 10-50 lbs overweight and uses MFP as intended will rarely have a reason to do that. However, consider:

- Someone who has a lot to lose, say a BMI of 50 or over, and for whom *any* activity beyond moving from a chair to another room to fetch something is exercise. They may want to keep track of what they are actually doing and simply walking around a grocery store for 30 min may be a significant exertion.
- Also, someone who tracks these things doesn't necessarily eat the calories back.
- Some may track extraordinary efforts -- they may not have time one day to do their regular weekend walk of 4 miles because the yard needs work, but the 4h spent ripping out weeds makes up for it. I found myself doing that when I was days from a trans-Atlantic move and just didn't have time to go to the gym: I added some (small) amount of exercise calories after a day of repeatedly walking to the recycling center with crates of paper and cleaning the old place from top to bottom. The "sedentary" lifestyle setting just didn't apply during that time.