Cleaning calories
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DterMined2012 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....0 -
Another thing to add, if you want to add more to your daily routines such as house work then add exercises to your chores. I live far from an gym and I have two little ones so getting out the door to head to the gym isnt practical for me everyday. So, while I fold laundry I skip in place, vacuuming I do lunges, dusting i do calve raises, if youre forced to watch your kids favorite shows then do some squats. There is an exercise in everything you do
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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.
That's the type of thinking that started me into an ED spiral before. Tread very carefully. If you're using MFP calculations, you SHOULD be eating back at least a percentage of the calories burned - most people go with 50% to account for inaccuracies. You absolutely SHOULD. That's the way this tool was designed. If you're calculating TDEE, then no. But your logging would be totally different doing TDEE. I don't log any exercise or activity on here. I have a spreadsheet where I log my runs, lifts, and calories burned so I can make sure I'm close to the activity I set in the TDEE calcs.0 -
I don't log cleaning, just like I won't log walking through disney amusement parks later in the week. However, if I find i have been running from zombies, I'll probably log that.
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clearly you have NO idea how this tool ACTUALLY works. smhWell, 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.
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As a West Texas gal, I concur. If it was as easy as sweating it out, I'd be skinny as ever during our 115 degree summers. LOL!0 -
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.
First post?? Yeah ok.
You have no ideal what you are talking about, lol.
I guess I been doing it wrong, lost 121 pounds.0 -
[/bers (6)
Robert Wildman, PhD - Flower Mound, TX - Nutrition & Dietetics Follow
Robert Wildman, PhD, Nutrition & Dietetics, answered
Any type of movement leads to additional calories burned, so absolutely, housework is considered exercise. Just because you might not have sweat pants on or be wearing the latest sport shoe, it's still exercise. For instance, a 130 lb woman might burn an addition 200 calories engaged in moderate housework such as dusting, vacuuming, laundry, etc. If you venture outside that same woman will burn over 200 calories per hour gardening and in upwards of 275-330 calories shoveling snow. Now you probably won't develop muscle mass or experience a lot of cardiovascular benefit, but your efforts will be contributing to easier weight control and self-satisfaction.
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I think that when we are filling out the activity level section even if we list "sedentary" the good people at MFP are assuming that we are engaging in household chores. I don't think a big marathon clean is different than doing the same things a bit each day. If you really think that cleaning wasn't considered a normal sedentary lifestyle activity then I would ask but I'm doubtful the standard is to assume we all have maids! (not that I don't wish this were true).0
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Always_Smiling_D wrote: »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 0 -
I need to add cleaning to my Bingo card, that one always gets me.
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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!0
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pincushion14 wrote: »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! 0 -
Always_Smiling_D wrote: »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!!
OP, a job that big I'd count it. But I'd still do some other exercise as well tho... :flowerforyou:0 -
It's a non issue in the big scheme of things, but great for arguing over the internet, though. Carry on.0
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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.0
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Please explain to me why a HRM would not be accurate.cwolfman13 wrote: »DterMined2012 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....
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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.0 -
DterMined2012 wrote: »
Please explain to me why a HRM would not be accurate.cwolfman13 wrote: »DterMined2012 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....
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.0 -
If you want to log it, knock yourself out. If it's inaccurate, the only person you're potentially hurting is yourself.0
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^^this.
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TheVirgoddess 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 worried0 -
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.0
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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.TheVirgoddess 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
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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.
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TheOwlhouseDesigns wrote: »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.TheOwlhouseDesigns wrote: »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.0 -
This is really bad advice!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.
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.
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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.0 -
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??0
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