How do you log non-standard exercise?

ceiswyn
ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
edited November 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
For example, I spent about five solid hours yesterday clearing out three rooms of my house in preparation to have carpets fitted. Boxing things up, carrying things upstairs, carrying other things downstairs, taking apart unwanted furniture, trips to the charity shop and/or tip...

According to my step counter I managed to rack up 10,000 steps, most of which was inside my house! And today I'm feeling a serious workout in my quads, glutes, biceps, triceps, and let's just call it every muscle in my body other than the main core ones.

I ultimately logged it as 45 minutes of walking and an hour of strength training, but I have no idea whether the calorie burn that yields is an underestimate, an overestimate, or anything even vaguely related to an estimate.

How do you go about the process of turning activities like this into something you can track in MFP? Any recommendations for making good guesstimates?

Replies

  • elliej
    elliej Posts: 466 Member
    Personally I do not log these as extra activity
  • bennettinfinity
    bennettinfinity Posts: 865 Member
    Assuming you had a fitness tracker of some sort counting your steps, I would have been content to log the tracker calories as my burn for the day - especially given that this is not an activity that you will be repeating regularly. Did you burn more than those 10,000 steps represented? Absolutely; but by how much is anybody's guess. Better to not worry about what the 'extra' burn was and just let it add to your deficit for the day.

    Speaking for myself, I truly only concern myself with accuracy if it's something I'm doing multiple days per week on an ongoing basis - because that's where accuracy is going to have the greatest impact on my results in the long run.
  • cjhabvala
    cjhabvala Posts: 4 Member
    when you need to inspire yourself, every activity counts. I am disappointed that things like gardening and housework are not in the data base. You burn a lot of calories lifting 40 lb bags of mulch and top soil. I'm going to count them as aerobic exercise, but underestimate how long I did it so I don't fool myself into thinking I can go for that dessert I'm denying myself.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 26,067 Member
    edited May 2017
    ceiswyn wrote: »
    For example, I spent about five solid hours yesterday clearing out three rooms of my house in preparation to have carpets fitted. Boxing things up, carrying things upstairs, carrying other things downstairs, taking apart unwanted furniture, trips to the charity shop and/or tip...

    I ultimately logged it as 45 minutes of walking and an hour of strength training, but I have no idea whether the calorie burn that yields is an underestimate, an overestimate, or anything even vaguely related to an estimate.

    How do you go about the process of turning activities like this into something you can track in MFP? Any recommendations for making good guesstimates?

    I did something like this one day ... 4-ish hours of unpacking, lifting, carrying, moving furniture and boxes and stuff, etc. ... and logged it as 1 hour of "housecleaning".

    And yes, "housecleaning" is indeed in the database.



    But normal housecleaning never gets logged because that's just part of being sedentary. Sedentary doesn't mean you lie in bed all the time ... it means you're up and about doing "normal" things like washing dishes, walking back and forth to the photocopier, running across to the post office, doing the laundry, etc. etc.

  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
    edited May 2017
    Machka9 wrote: »
    And yes, "housecleaning" is indeed in the database.

    Aha, I just found the various 'moving boxes', 'moving furniture' etc entries... though they seem crazy high.
    But normal housecleaning never gets logged because that's just part of being sedentary. Sedentary doesn't mean you lie in bed all the time ... it means you're up and about doing "normal" things like washing dishes, walking back and forth to the photocopier, running across to the post office, doing the laundry, etc. etc.

    Yep, my activity level is set to sedentary but I never log things like doing the hoovering! Lugging several boxes of books the ten-minute walk to the charity shop, or kicking apart my old bookcase and loading it all into the car for the tip, on the other hand, seemed worth tracking, especially as I was essentially doing things like that all day and feel far more achy and exhausted today than I do after gym sessions!
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