Cleaning calories

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13

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  • justcat206
    justcat206 Posts: 716 Member
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    I believe the every day house work shouldn't be counted as calories burnt, only because those are things you were doing before. But I would def. count a massive house cleaning - I am puertorrican so cleaning to me includes loud music and lots of dancing as well - no workout needed after. Just be careful you don't over estimate the calories burnt.

    Yes! My big clean days always include a lot of dancing to loud music. It definitely gets my heartrate up :)
  • Serah87
    Serah87 Posts: 5,481 Member
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    I need to add cleaning to my Bingo card, that one always gets me. ;)
  • Mediocrates55
    Mediocrates55 Posts: 326 Member
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    That's it - someone needs to start a bingo thread so we can keep up with what-all is on it. I WANT MY PRIZE!
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
    edited December 2014
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    That's it - someone needs to start a bingo thread so we can keep up with what-all is on it. I WANT MY PRIZE!

    I already won! :wink:
  • Lasmartchika
    Lasmartchika Posts: 3,440 Member
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    I believe the every day house work shouldn't be counted as calories burnt, only because those are things you were doing before. But I would def. count a massive house cleaning - I am puertorrican so cleaning to me includes loud music and lots of dancing as well- no workout needed after. Just be careful you don't over estimate the calories burnt.

    Hhheeeyyy!!! :drinker: Isn't that the normal way to clean la casa?! It's the only way I know how!! :blush:

    OP, a job that big I'd count it. But I'd still do some other exercise as well tho... :flowerforyou:
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,895 Member
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    It's a non issue in the big scheme of things, but great for arguing over the internet, though. Carry on.
  • angelamb1970
    angelamb1970 Posts: 122 Member
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    One of my goals is to be more active on a daily basis than I used to be. I log things like Heavy Cleaning as 1 calorie, so it doesn't affect my calorie number, but I can still have it on my list of activity. It helps me at the end of the week to track if I'm making progress to be more active.
  • DterMined2012
    DterMined2012 Posts: 600 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    spm2010 wrote: »
    I notice there is always a big debate for if you should or shouldn't count calories from cleaning. Here is why I do and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I am doing a massive clean today, I mean my whole house top to bottom, I will be moving furniture, dusting the ceiling, vacuuming, carrying stuff out to my shed, cleaning out every closet, scrubbing baseboards, packing away summer and fall clothes (yes I am that slow lol), scrubbing counters, toilets and bath tubs, cleaning under my fridge and stove, cleaning in my stove and a lot more. That is a lot of hard work that will take me hours, so why are some people so against including that in their exercise for the day?

    I agree with you! I will be doing major cleaning today as well, this cleaning is NOT done every day!! So I will wear my HR monitor and see how it goes!

    A HRM will not be accurate for this activity....
    Please explain to me why a HRM would not be accurate.

  • MoiAussi93
    MoiAussi93 Posts: 1,948 Member
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    I consider cleaning part of normal daily activity...this should be captured in your activity level. Especially since your heart rate will NOT be constantly elevated during your day of cleaning. You will have lots of periods of very easy or minimal effort mixed in with a few minutes here and there of more vigorous activity. You really do not burn many "extra" calories doing that. For the same reason, I don't count showering, cooking, walking around my neighborhood to run errands, doing my laundry...yes, all of these things do burn some calories...some more than others...but that is already accounted for based on the activity level I set.

    And whether I choose to run one errand every few days, or spend one entire day per month doing all of them really makes no difference. Over the long run it is the same number of calories. You can count it as extra if you like, but you are only cheating yourself if you do so.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    spm2010 wrote: »
    I notice there is always a big debate for if you should or shouldn't count calories from cleaning. Here is why I do and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I am doing a massive clean today, I mean my whole house top to bottom, I will be moving furniture, dusting the ceiling, vacuuming, carrying stuff out to my shed, cleaning out every closet, scrubbing baseboards, packing away summer and fall clothes (yes I am that slow lol), scrubbing counters, toilets and bath tubs, cleaning under my fridge and stove, cleaning in my stove and a lot more. That is a lot of hard work that will take me hours, so why are some people so against including that in their exercise for the day?

    I agree with you! I will be doing major cleaning today as well, this cleaning is NOT done every day!! So I will wear my HR monitor and see how it goes!

    A HRM will not be accurate for this activity....
    Please explain to me why a HRM would not be accurate.

    That's already been explained. Calorie burn doesn't correlate with heart rate. An HRM guesses at calorie burn by using your heart rate to estimate VO2. The problem is that heart rate and VO2 don't really correlate well, the closest they get is about 80% during steady state cardio. Every other activity is pretty much 0% correlation accuracy, the HRM is essentially just giving you a random number.

    Trying to use an HRM for anything other than steady state cardio is like trying to use the Pythagorean theorem to calculate the circumference of a circle. It's the wrong formula, and you'll never get the correct answer.
  • TheVirgoddess
    TheVirgoddess Posts: 4,535 Member
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    If you want to log it, knock yourself out. If it's inaccurate, the only person you're potentially hurting is yourself.
  • Wronkletoad
    Wronkletoad Posts: 368 Member
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    ^^this.

  • spm2010
    spm2010 Posts: 197 Member
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    If you want to log it, knock yourself out. If it's inaccurate, the only person you're potentially hurting is yourself.

    I am only hurting myself if I eat back every single calorie, I don't intend to even eat half back so I am not worried
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
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    HRMs only approach accurate for certain steady state cardio activities, not cleaning. Normal activities are included in the baseline calories that start at 120% of BMR for sedentary and go up from there with each activity level. Understanding NEAT is step one when signing up for MFP ... if that eludes you, please do your homework.
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
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    spm2010 wrote: »
    If you want to log it, knock yourself out. If it's inaccurate, the only person you're potentially hurting is yourself.

    I am only hurting myself if I eat back every single calorie, I don't intend to even eat half back so I am not worried
    Well .. if I were logging things like cleaning I would deliberately not use MFP as designed too since you're logging activities that cannot possibly be accurately calculated.
  • BWBTrish
    BWBTrish Posts: 2,817 Member
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    i think when you have your settings here on sedentary, that you must log it.
    Because sedentary is the level of "doing nothing" all day.

    When you really goes deep cleaning ( lol) sweat and for quit some time its more an exercise.

    when your level is (lightly) active or active. No i wont log it either.
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
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    i think when you have your settings here on sedentary, that you must log it.
    Because sedentary is the level of "doing nothing" all day.

    When you really goes deep cleaning ( lol) sweat and for quit some time its more an exercise.

    when your level is (lightly) active or active. No i wont log it either.
    i think when you have your settings here on sedentary, that you must log it.
    Because sedentary is the level of "doing nothing" all day.

    When you really goes deep cleaning ( lol) sweat and for quit some time its more an exercise.

    when your level is (lightly) active or active. No i wont log it either.

    No .. that isn't what sedentary means. It is for those who "Spend most of the day sitting (e.g. bank teller, desk job)" and is still 120% of your BMR.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    edited December 2014
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    msmanni7 wrote: »
    Well, my opinion is count them. Its movement, exertion, and if you're breaking a sweat then yes count them. But here is the BIG kicker, DO NOT REPLACE THOSE CALORIES THAT YOU HAVE BURNED WITH FOOD!! That is where I see a lot of people getting this wrong. Just because the program gives you back those calories doesnt mean you should use them. It will tell you that you are consuming too few calories but just ignore it. If you have met your calorie quota in food then STOP, even if it says you have some left.
    This is really bad advice!
    Rather than type in CAPITALS maybe learn something about exercise, sensible and sustainable weight loss and importantly how MFP is actually designed to be used.

    BTW - Guess I shouldn't log and eat back the calories from my 80 minute fast cycle ride today as I didn't sweat (freezing cold day here). SMH.

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Serah87 wrote: »
    ex·er·cise
    ˈeksərˌsīz/Submit
    noun
    1.
    activity requiring physical effort, carried out especially to sustain or improve health and fitness.

    The counter argument would be that additional non-exercise activity that isn't included in your standard activity setting also burns calories. If the duration and effort is significant there's not really any good reason not to log it. So not the little bits and pieces but if you are talking hours of additional genuine physical activity why not?
    e.g. a desk worker (sedentary setting) who spends 4 hours doing heavy gardening at the weekend is going to burning a reasonably significant number of additional calories.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    I think if you break into a sweat and get puffed out as you would doing proper exercise then count it, but underestimate the calories burned by a fair bit. Still not sure how you would count housework tho??