cleaning: light and moderate, or vigorous

I would say normal everyday cleaning, like dusting or sweeping or dishes are light/mod. Scrubbing the floors/baseboards and deep "spring" cleaning that only happens every now and then cause its so dang hard would be vigorous.

I always choose light even if it's a very tough one because I think MFP grants us a bit too much sometimes !!
Rather less than too much to be on the safe side of daily calories!!!

I have heard of MFP People using this as their entry for sex before too. just fyi lol :laugh:

Light- Dusting, sweeping, dishes etc
Moderate- washing the car, vacuuming the stairs, reaching bending etc?
Vigorous- Cleaning the garage, heavy lifting and lots of movement involved, probably sweating too.

I only log cleaning of any form if it is above and beyond what I normally do. If I were to scrub floors on my hands and knees, move furniture, wash walls, wash the carpeting,.... I would add it in, but if it is daily cleaning or weekly cleaning, I assume it as my daily activity level.

I do the same!!

I only log cleaning of any form if it is above and beyond what I normally do. If I were to scrub floors on my hands and knees, move furniture, wash walls, wash the carpeting,.... I would add it in, but if it is daily cleaning or weekly cleaning, I assume it as my daily activity level.

I have to admit I thoroughly agree with this. Even if you select 'sedentary' as your daily activity level, MFP does not assume that you are horizontal in bed doing nothing all day, the calories you use for normal activities are included in your base calories. To earn extras you need to exercise and move above and beyond a normal days amount. One of my friends is currently struggling as she logs each and every movement she makes on a daily basis (normal stuff like 'light' cleaning, walking to the school to pick the children up etc, stuff that she was doing all time anyway) and she eats back about 80% of these calories, plus all her base calories and any additional exercise calories she may earn, if not more, and wonders why she isn't losing any weight.

I hope I'm not coming across as a bit of a cow, I don't mean to, but I'm not sure cleaning and other normal daily activities should really count as exercise.

If I need to take a shower after cleaning the whole house from top to bottom I say vigorous!

I don't log the little bits here and there but the big clean I do once a week that includes scrubbing, vacuuming etc usually takes me 2 hours so I do log that.

Personally I dont log cleaning as an excercise unless it was hours long one off spring clean type thing where you really worked. If it is everyday/weekely cleaning then I dont add that, to me that is just part of everyday life...

When cleaning you are stopping and starting, your heart rate is not raised all the time and in 1 hours cleaning your heart rate may only be raised for 5 -10 mins of that...when you log into MFP then it allocates you calories for that whole hour which may be incorrect and then you eat them back and go over your calories...


I treat cleanign like a bonus, bit of extra excersie and a clean house but dont log it to gain extra calories...

I log cleaning only if I've done something like hoovering right through, or cleaning the bath (especially after hubby has used it LOL) - but I always take off at least 10 minutes and only log it as light effort.

I have just logged my mammoth task of mowing the lawn though (as general gardening) - after 2 weeks of being away on holiday, during which time it rained nearly every day here, I could only tell the tortoise was on a walkabout because of the grass movement! Got to admit it looks a lot better now, the tortoise is happy about being in daylight again, and I worked up a sweat!