Logging Everything or only Intentional Workouts?

I don't bother logging any workouts.

I find it's not necessary if your routine is consistent. I've been doing the same workout routine for the past 6 months or so, never logged one day of it. The only thing I keep track of is food. When I want to change my goals, I simply adjust my food intake.

yep, everything

I log my intentional workouts but I will turn on my Map My Walk app when I am out and about, not really shopping unless I am walking to the store and/or home. I usually pause it while in the store, no housework or anything like that, I consider that part of life

cwolfman13 wrote: »

Ummmm...when you select an activity level, you get some allotment of calories for daily chore type of things along with your basal calories. Even if you put sedentary, you're getting some credit for doing basic things like going to the grocery store and whatnot.

When I did MFP method I logged my deliberate exercise with some allowance for estimation error. Once my exercise became more consistent I just switched to the TDEE method and included exercise in my activity level.

Yeah. I do the TDEE method as well. It just makes things easier. I log my exercises b/c I like to look back at what I was doing x amount of time ago.

I only log weightlifting and my Insanity Max 30 workouts. The only calories that I eat back anyway are the ones I burn from weightlifting.

only intentional work-outs such as weight-lifting and cardio on treadmill, etc. sometimes i might log a bike ride, if i pull my daughter in the bike trailer, but a normal bike ride i do not b/c i do it so frequently. if it's part of my daily routine, i just consider it life. my cousin used to log cooking a meal, cleaning her bathroom, walking her dog, walking upstairs (at home) and she could never lose weight. she would eat-back all those "exercise" calories, and she was never ahead.

I only log intentional workouts, and delete the calories my phone gives me for everyday activities. Everyday activities are already included in the settings you chose when you set up your goals and profile (sedentary, etc). Plus I figure if I was already doing it when I was gaining weight, that it won't help me lose.

"Sedentary" does NOT equal "inert". If you start logging casual activities, you will be counting many of your activity calories twice.

I would think if you log everything then you have to remove everything. The program automatically estimates a calorie expenditure based on the original preferences. If you said you do exercise at all, it will still subtract calories for the 2k steps and normal activities you do during the day.

Notreadytoquit wrote: »

I log everything from digging ditches to cooking and cleaning. Opening a yogurt is not equal in energy expenditure to cleaning the kitchen, gathering food from garden, cooking for 3 & cleaning up again. Since I no longer engage in hard core "intentional workouts" my intent is to make every effort count. Must be working as I've finally hit goal weight with only 1 "intentional workout". Real life activity burns just as many calories as "intentional" activity.

Are you logging those and "eating back" those calories though? Yes, daily living burns calories...in fact it burns far more calories than deliberate exercise...but those calories are accounted for in your allotment.

I burn around 2400 calories per day without intentional exercise...that's my basal rate plus being lightly active in general...but if I were to log and eat back the calories I burn from cooking meals for my family and cleaning my house, I would be double counting.

La5Vega5Girl wrote: »

my cousin used to log cooking a meal, cleaning her bathroom, walking her dog, walking upstairs (at home) and she could never lose weight. she would eat-back all those "exercise" calories, and she was never ahead.

No wonder, especially since MFP seems to overestimate the calories by a factor of three or so.

I only log intentional workouts. Mfp already accounts for regular daily activities like cleaning your home, walking to the kitchen or around work. There's no need to log that stuff.

I can't say that I haven't logged a daily activity, but I do not log anything that doesn't require an effort on my part. Before I started making an effort, I would take around 3,000 steps a day. Anything over that on a typical day would be logged as walking, but not the first 3,000. Likewise cleaning. Base was around an hour a day, spread out without real effort. When I put on my iPod and dance around the house while busting it out all day, the effort got logged minus the base (and usually divided in half to ensure I didn't over-calculate).

The important thing to remember is that diet is for nutrition. If you are keeping the calories down but not meeting your nutritional goals, your body will keep telling you that you're missing something, making you more likely to fall off the wagon or potentially causing your body to try to reserve nutrients and the weight that goes with it.

Exercise is for fitness. Fitness alone will not cause weight loss, no matter if it's intentional or typical daily activities.

Weight loss happens when Nutrition and Fitness are a balanced marriage and together create a weight loss baby named Deficit. As long as you are not using that deficit as a free pass to consume whatever junk lies hidden in your sock drawer, you will find yourself losing weight.

My #1 point for advocating a Fitbit is that I find it takes care of the routine activities so I just log exercise, or "intentional workouts" as you're calling it. If I have a sedentary day, the device will deduct calories and if I happen to do more walking than normal (say, shopping) then it adds appropriately for that.