Ok I'll bite - is "cooking and food prep" really exercise?
kiela64
Posts: 1,447 Member
I see it all over my feed, people burning hundreds of calories by cooking! I wear a step counter, and I spent 2h cooking today, and my step counter told me I have burned no calories. Is this real?
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Not for me. It's part of "lifestyle".0
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Yeaaah.....no.0
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Unless they are cooking with some seriously heavy foods, while preparing them via sets and reps, no.0
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Nope, not in my world. Neither is house cleaning. I do let my fitbit track those things though and tend to earn some calories for the movement but it's not a lot and my activity level is set to sedentary.
I think people of those things because they are trying to justify eating more. They are likely just fooling themselves and not getting much weight loss. But that is pretty much their battle to fight and I try not to judge.0 -
Nah, I tend to nibble during prep so if anything it is added calories0
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Maybe ... if you're preparing a banquet for a large crowd.
Or ...
Back a few years ago, I lived for a year "off the grid" in a little cabin in the middle of nowhere with no electricity (except for a generator we ran occasionally), no running water (except for the rain), none of the things we usually take for granted.
In order to cook, I had to gather firewood (or at the very least bring in a bunch of logs from the wood pile), build the fire and get it just right. I made the food from scratch (no electric mixers or anything) and then cooked it over the fire in a heavy cast iron dutch oven. Unfortunately our fireplace was not particularly efficient, so I had to keep the fire up through the whole process which meant trips out to the wood pile bringing in logs. I also had to keep turning and adjusting the heavy cast iron dutch oven to make sure that what I was cooking was cooking evenly.
I probably burned a few more calories doing that than now when I just pop something in the microwave.
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I see it all over my feed, people burning hundreds of calories by cooking! I wear a step counter, and I spent 2h cooking today, and my step counter told me I have burned no calories. Is this real?
Haha I think you will find its a bit of a joke.....I logged 3hr of sunbaking the other day just being silly
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summerkissed wrote: »I see it all over my feed, people burning hundreds of calories by cooking! I wear a step counter, and I spent 2h cooking today, and my step counter told me I have burned no calories. Is this real?
Haha I think you will find its a bit of a joke.....I logged 3hr of sunbaking the other day just being silly
I think they are deadly serious and seriously grasping at straws... I often wonder if they do jazzercise or cartwheel back and forth in their kitchen when they're cooking :huh:0 -
I.... guess it counts loosely as "activity", if your daily calories are set to your RMR and you're logging absolutely everything you do..........????? I mean, you're burning more calories than if you were sitting on your butt. Though it's still kind of a stretch.
Or maybe the people on your feed are doing squats with 20lb turkeys. You never know.0 -
pathetic0
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People log all kinds of stuff. My rule for myself is I don't log it unless I'm primarily doing it for the exercise. So walking through the parking lot to my car, mowing the lawn, and housework don't get counted. That's what works for me but other people do what they want.0
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UUuuuuummmmmm NO!0
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These are usually the same people who then post wondering why they aren't losing weight even though they're doing everything perfectly. You will never convince them the problem is they're logging every single movement they do as extra calories even though these are factored in already when MFP sets up your goal.0
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disasterman wrote: »People log all kinds of stuff. My rule for myself is I don't log it unless I'm primarily doing it for the exercise. So walking through the parking lot to my car, mowing the lawn, and housework don't get counted. That's what works for me but other people do what they want.
that's what i am supposed to be doing. LOL0 -
Maybe if you're a teppanyaki chef doing all the knife/food throwing stuff cooking might be a bit of a workout. But otherwise? It's deluded to think you're burning anything significant, so logging it is silly.
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a lot of these people are disabled or chronically ill. I'm often bed bound so if I manage a small walk, I do log it, even if it is 5 minutes. Some of my friends on here have similar illnesses or physical challenges, a bit of cleaning or whatever is movement or activity that they can't usually manage
It might seem " pathetic" to you, but if that is a small achievement for someone who is normally too unwell to manage it, then yes they'll log it0 -
I don't know, when I cook I take steps so I do end up exercising a little, lol. Thanks, Fitbit.0
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To this I must agree. If I had no health problems and was back in my fit and healthy days, trust me I'd be logging marathons not a gentle stretch or stroll lol
But we don't always know people's situation0 -
I guess it depends if i'm cooking from scratch or not... I mean... If i have to go tromping through the forest after some damn boar, harvest an apple to stick in its mouth, reap some wheat, grind it to flour, etc... totally, that's alot of damn work!0
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a lot of these people are disabled or chronically ill. I'm often bed bound so if I manage a small walk, I do log it, even if it is 5 minutes. Some of my friends on here have similar illnesses or physical challenges, a bit of cleaning or whatever is movement or activity that they can't usually manage
It might seem " pathetic" to you, but if that is a small achievement for someone who is normally too unwell to manage it, then yes they'll log it
I thought it always came down to, is it something you do everyday as part of life, or is it out of the ordinary? For these kinds of people, it may very well be above and beyond what they're able to do on a regular basis. But I imagine their calorie recommendation, even at sedentary, is based on the assumption they are doing these things already, so I wouldn't think it would be wise to count on a calorie boost from it. They may want to log it as a means of tracking their own personal activity/improvement however.0 -
a lot of these people are disabled or chronically ill. I'm often bed bound so if I manage a small walk, I do log it, even if it is 5 minutes. Some of my friends on here have similar illnesses or physical challenges, a bit of cleaning or whatever is movement or activity that they can't usually manage
It might seem " pathetic" to you, but if that is a small achievement for someone who is normally too unwell to manage it, then yes they'll log it
It really is a matter of individual circumstances. I am a reasonable healthy adult so I only log purposeful exercise. I do have an activity tracker and get extra calories for steps so my cooking and house cleaning will fall into that scenario but log them, no. It is part of my daily activity.0 -
a lot of these people are disabled or chronically ill. I'm often bed bound so if I manage a small walk, I do log it, even if it is 5 minutes. Some of my friends on here have similar illnesses or physical challenges, a bit of cleaning or whatever is movement or activity that they can't usually manage
It might seem " pathetic" to you, but if that is a small achievement for someone who is normally too unwell to manage it, then yes they'll log it
I did not use the word "pathetic"! I think every person on my feed is fantastic, and I would never criticize someone who had difficulty with "ordinary" things like cooking and cleaning. I myself rarely do it, as I live with my family and just don't have those responsibilities too often.
This is totally a valid point that I didn't think of. I've seen people log it daily. If it was say 10 calories burned for 20 minutes of cooking/cleaning, it would seem reasonable and I'd think nothing of it, I might have done it myself. But I see hundreds of calories logged, something like 200 for an hour, and it seemed off to me. I wondered what people's perception of it was, so I posted to the forum here.
I suppose, from people's responses, either it takes an extraordinary amount of energy for a person to cook/clean (as in the situation you describe), or they live in a setting where it would be difficult to cook/clean (eg. w/o electricity), or they are simply searching for some extra calories (as other people posted).0 -
a lot of these people are disabled or chronically ill. I'm often bed bound so if I manage a small walk, I do log it, even if it is 5 minutes. Some of my friends on here have similar illnesses or physical challenges, a bit of cleaning or whatever is movement or activity that they can't usually manage
It might seem " pathetic" to you, but if that is a small achievement for someone who is normally too unwell to manage it, then yes they'll log it
I think the issue is with the calories burned! If it is a disabled or chronically ill person you wouldn't be logging it for the burn but more for the fact that you were actually able to do it and so you can see that you achieved it. Others do it to try and manipulate calories or make excuses to eat more then complain they aren't losing weight!
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Christine_72 wrote: »summerkissed wrote: »I see it all over my feed, people burning hundreds of calories by cooking! I wear a step counter, and I spent 2h cooking today, and my step counter told me I have burned no calories. Is this real?
Haha I think you will find its a bit of a joke.....I logged 3hr of sunbaking the other day just being silly
I think they are deadly serious and seriously grasping at straws... I often wonder if they do jazzercise or cartwheel back and forth in their kitchen when they're cooking :huh:
Hehe I seen a girl log dog washing lol because she had to hold the dog with her legs so she must have been able to burn cals through that!!0 -
I see it all over my feed, people burning hundreds of calories by cooking! I wear a step counter, and I spent 2h cooking today, and my step counter told me I have burned no calories. Is this real?
It's not exercise, it is general activity...even a sedentary activity level is going to include up to 5,000 steps, so I'd think it would cover most cooking and general cleaning and other daily type activities.
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I also seen one when a girl missed the bus and window shopped till the next bus so she wanted to know how to log 30min of window shopping0
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I don't count any calories I burned that I don't "exert."0
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I saw people log " pushing a grocery cart for 10 mins " as exercise.
For me, cooking and shopping is not a workout. Its part of my daily life.
I've also seen people log sex. That's tmi and doesn't burn as much as one might think anyway.
For someone who is basically bed ridden then maybe it counts as a workout for them. But it doesn't for me. I only log what I do at the gym.0
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