Thoughts on logging "exercise"

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  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    edited August 2017
    I log my 3-a-week workouts at the pool (1.5 miles of laps and a water aerobics class). If I take a long walk and use Map My Walk to record the distance and pace, it gets automatically logged. The steps I get from everyday activity do not get logged. When I do something physical that is totally out of the ordinary; like a few weeks ago when I spaded, tilled, composted, planted, and mulched my perennial garden; I will log a portion of it (1/3). Next spring when I do the same thing to my vegetable garden, I will also log it. I will not log any of the garden maintenance.

    I eat back logged activity calories. I do not eat back the extra calories my Garmin gives me for my daily activity steps. I count the extra calories Garmin gives me as a cushion.

    This may not make sense to others, but it works for me. I am set to lose 1 lb. a week. By eating back only my logged exercises and ignoring my tracker steps I am averaging just a little over my actual target of 1.5 lb. a week. I try to be really accurate with my calories in and let all of the extra play happen with the calories out.

    ETA: when I started, I had a little over 100 lb to lose so 1.5 lb a week is perfectly safe. I still have 55 lb to lose so it is still safe, but I expect to slow down eventually to 1 lb.
  • splinker
    splinker Posts: 17 Member
    I wouldn't count it. I think when you set up your profile and choose you daily activity level, your calorie count is adjusted. So if you work at a desk during a typical day and don't move around a lot, you choose the "lazy *kitten*" setting. That's the best setting to choose any way, erring on the side of caution and all that.

    If you're a house cleaning machine and on your feet all day, choose moderate in your daily activity settings. If you clean about as often as Trump completes a sentence, then choose "inactive." Either way, don't count cleaning and such as exercise. It's a form of double dipping.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,883 Member
    2DUNNY wrote: »
    artanis50 wrote: »
    I've seen some people logging things such as vacuuming, doing laundry, making the bed, etc as "exercise" and I don't see the point. I mean I do all those things too. Always have. But I still got fat doing them so I don't think they should count as exercise calories.

    What do you think?

    my cousin joined MFP and she logged EVERYTHING - even cooking dinner. it really depends on how you want to log things. in my opinion, if i do the activity every day, or most days, then i do NOT log it. if it is sporadic (such as working in my garden, or walking my dog) which i don't do very often, then i DO log it. i am getting to the point now where i don't even log my weight lifting at the gym because it has become such a part of my normal routine.
    by the way, i have lost 39 lbs and the cousin i mentioned hasn't lost any.

    I used to log all my cooking. But I usually had > 100 calories left at the end of the day that I didn't eat. Now I just log cooking if I'm doing an unusually large amount of special occasion cooking.

    Likewise, it's part of my routine to do a little fussing with my garden after dinner. I don't log that. But I'm soon going to be creating a circle garden under my crab apple tree, and I sure as heck am going to log that. My back hurts just thinking about all that digging, lol.

    Your cousin's system isn't working for her so she does indeed need to adjust. If someone logged all their cooking and cleaning and lost weight as expected, I certainly wouldn't give them a hard time.
  • Polo265
    Polo265 Posts: 287 Member
    MelanieCN77 wrote: »
    GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
    chesstauren wrote: »
    I agree... Daily life activities shouldn't be considered as an exercise. As a rule of thumb, if you don't burn at least 500 calories doing something, don't bother logging it.

    Say what?

    I'm a short old lady. Nothing I do burns 500 calories at once.

    I'm a regular height 40yo and even running a 5k wouldn't burn me 500 calories.

    I'm regular height and will be 68 next month. Nothing I do is going to burn 500 calories.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    Polo265 wrote: »
    MelanieCN77 wrote: »
    GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
    chesstauren wrote: »
    I agree... Daily life activities shouldn't be considered as an exercise. As a rule of thumb, if you don't burn at least 500 calories doing something, don't bother logging it.

    Say what?

    I'm a short old lady. Nothing I do burns 500 calories at once.

    I'm a regular height 40yo and even running a 5k wouldn't burn me 500 calories.

    I'm regular height and will be 68 next month. Nothing I do is going to burn 500 calories.

    I am 5'7", 61, and currently 230 lb. My 1.5 miles of lap swimming earn me 950 calories. I record it as swimming, leisurely, general because if I log it as swimming, breast stroke MFP would give me over 1500 calories earned which is WAY inflated.
  • cgcrutch
    cgcrutch Posts: 223 Member
    I don't think its a good idea, unless ur profile is set to the most SEDENTARY option. Then u can count everything. It seems like setting ur lifestyle to moderately active, which increases calories allowed, then logging every activity, which increases calories allowed, is counting everything TWICE. Doubling the calorie increase.
  • cgcrutch
    cgcrutch Posts: 223 Member
    I count chores, walking around the city, goin dancing regularly, as part of lifestyle. Anything beyond that would be logged. If I workout I'd log it cuz I DIDN'T account for it in lifestyle. Cuz I rather not workout LOL!
  • Kim_S_G
    Kim_S_G Posts: 120 Member
    I have seen people on these forums state, "This isn't MyWeightlossPal, it's MyFitnessPal." That has sort of stuck with me. I do not know the reason why some people would log such activity, but it may be for reasons other than weight loss.
  • JessicaMcB
    JessicaMcB Posts: 1,503 Member
    I don't log daily activities but do have to log purposeful exercise. Today for example my long run burnt roughly 3000 calories (before anyone asks about inflated numbers it was 52k so that is a pretty reasonable number)- if I wasn't accounting for that on a regular basis I would have a lot of problems really quick. Conversely if I don't account for mowing the lawn nothing bad is likely to happen you know?
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,539 Member
    JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
    Question: Suppose you have your activity level as "sedentary". What minimum MET value of activity do you log as exercise?
    competecompetecompete wrote: »
    JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
    "Doing those things" didn't make you fat. Eating too much did. I log mowing the grass, which I did while obese. I log automobile maintenance, which I did while obese. I know I purchased my treadmill while obese and used it a few times while obese. I even occasionally rode my bike while obese. Those things didn't make me obese. Come to think of it, I've been the doer of laundry, dishes, food prep, and floor vacuuming in my home for the past about 10 years since my wife's health troubles became severe. During most of those years I remained obese because I ate too much. Logging these activities now simply tells me when to stop eating.

    Huh?

    Question: Suppose one has an activity level set as "sedentary". What minimum value of MET activity should that one log as exercise? This is a serious question. One definition I've read of NEAT in a scholarly paper indicated that "dancing" was part of NEAT, and not to be treated as exercise. Yet, I've had friends here who were professional dancers and logged their hours of practice as 'dance'. That seems to be legit to me, but where should we actually draw the line between a MET value that's really part of NEAT and a MET value that's deliberately exercise? I don't need fitbit users telling me how fitbit handles it. I don't have a fitbit. So, woo me. I just want a real answer.

    TDEE = Resting Energy Expenditure + Non Resting Energy Expenditure.

    Non resting energy expenditure = Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis + Exercise Activity Thermogenesis + Thermic Effect of Food

    (Note that MFP already simplifies and labels NREE as NEAT when in reality the value shown should be presented as NREE = BMR + NEAT)

    In any case.

    The whole argument here is as to what is properly labeled exercise activity and what is labeled non exercise activity.

    But these two values are added to each other when we're trying to determine calories spent.

    So it really does not matter one lick whether an activity is captured and labeled as one or the other as long as the activity is correctly counted instead of either being missed or double counted.

    Double counting an activity is just as wrong as missing an activity or excluding it from the count!

    Past that people make an assumption as to what kind of error is more acceptable to them in terms of being able to meet their goals.

    I personally maintain that minimizing errors is the best approach as opposed to systematically accepting a bias in a single Direction.

    As to the Met value question, moderate exercise is usually considered a met value above 3. As such I would consider activities with a met value lower than three as non exercise activities in terms of their definition.

    It does not follow that they should not be logged as "exercise" because of the way that MFP counts things.

    In order to log them, but not log them as exercise, MFP would have to allow for variable daily activity settings. Which incidentally is what Fitbit and other trackers do...
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
    jospen83 wrote: »
    chesstauren wrote: »
    I agree... Daily life activities shouldn't be considered as an exercise. As a rule of thumb, if you don't burn at least 500 calories doing something, don't bother logging it.

    Lol, what? I'm guessing this is just a personal philosophy? Because I could run 4 miles in 40 minutes & wouldn't burn 500 calories (according to MFP). But you can bet your *kitten* I'm logging that. :wink:

    I was just thinking that. I did five miles today, and burned 445 calories. Why on earth *shouldn't* I log that?
  • xvolution
    xvolution Posts: 721 Member
    While I don't count cleaning around the house as exercise, I do count the hours I work since it's a fairly physical job and my current activity level in MFP is set to sedentary (since I only work 4 times a week).
  • LynnJ9
    LynnJ9 Posts: 414 Member
    I don't usually count housework, unless it is unusually physical. Yesterday I helped my daughter and steamed cleaned her carpets and hard wood floors. It was definitely a workout, lugging the water back and forth, pushing the cleaners, moving the furniture. I have my profile set to sedentary, so I definitely burnt more calories than usual.
  • MaddMaestro
    MaddMaestro Posts: 405 Member
    I don't log daily activities unless I've devoted an entire day of deep cleaning. On my knees, scrubbing floors and all.

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