Do you log cleaning as an exercise?

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Replies

  • cqbkaju
    cqbkaju Posts: 1,011 Member
    edited September 2017
    No. Cleaning is part of your daily activity level; LOW at best if you put in 2 or 3 hours a day EVERY day.
    It is easy to fall into a trap of logging any exercise as burning far more calories that it actually did.
    Logging mere activity as "exercise" is a different problem.

    If you didn't need to stop to catch your breath occasionally and/or if you could follow a magazine article or TV show while doing it then you are probably not "exercising" hard enough for it to count as such.
  • beerfoamy
    beerfoamy Posts: 1,521 Member
    I log cleaning/gardening if it is a deep clean of 2-3 hours. But I only usually put it in as 60mins whatever it actually took.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited September 2017
    If I were employed as a cleaner I'd have a more active daily setting than being employed with a desk job. If I logged back exercise (I use TDEE method) and had a rare crazy cleaning session (cleaning a house all day to put it for sale or something), sure, I might log it and eat back some extra calories.

    Mostly I wouldn't.

    If you use a Fitbit any cleaning will end up being part of your daily calories, though, and I did do that for a while. My guess is that MFP cleaning estimates are overly high.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,742 Member
    I assume estimates are pretty high for ALL exercise (and I don't use a fitbit or anything like that). So I always tend to under-log a little bit, unless it's moderate walk/jogs or strenuous hiking and then I do log it with the actual time spent.

    However...I DO log cleaning house. I'm set to sedentary because I have an office job. I don't log things like prepping meals and loading the dishwasher or picking up clutter. I DO log my vacuuming, scrubbing bathrooms, dusting entire rooms & baseboards, or cleaning out my car for an hour and hand detailing it.

    I've been successful with my goals on MFP and have used it for over 4 years. So this has worked well for me. I think it's good to do whatever is working for you.

    But I DO know of people here who log like "burned 900 calories doing 10 minutes of bicycle riding, leisurely" (I made that up of course but it's similar)...and never lose and complain :open_mouth:
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
    Unless it is unusual heavy effort I don't log it.
    Unusual to me would be like cleaning a flooded basement.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    I would say that several hours and up of spring cleaning for someone set to sedentary would be valid to log. It would at least be akin to a jump in activity level from sedentary (ie desk job) to lightly active (ie teacher/other job that has someone on their feet all day but not doing physical labor) for that day. For an activity level above sedentary, probably not. <1hr of washing the dishes/a little vacuuming/etc, probably not.
  • NEOHgirl
    NEOHgirl Posts: 237 Member
    edited September 2017
    I don't for daily things like washing dishes, but when I do a deeper cleaning, that has me up and moving for an hour or more that I'd normally be sitting down watching tv or reading, I'll count it. I live by myself, so I don't have to do that sort of cleaning more than once a month. It's not part of my daily calorie expenditure. Besides, my body tracks it as activity even if I don't, and I'd rather my diary be closer to accurate later when I use it to analyze my results for the week or month.

    ETA: My normal activity level is set to SEDENTARY. Logging the big cleaning sessions, not the small ones, has helped me to lose 40# since joining MFP 20 months ago. I am very careful with food logging though, and don't eat back all of my exercise calories.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
    edited September 2017
    nope..and I am one of those who doesn't log "out of the ordinary" life tasks either. Like throwing in the wood that I will be doing next weekend.

    I have a fitbit and it does track it and I am glad I never logged those things because it really never amounts to much more than my normal daily activity anyway.

    For example Saturday I typically run errands (take recycling back) get groceries, prep meals and do laundry....

    and if I have time a walk...I got 12444 steps in....next saturday I won't be doing the above I will be throwing wood in...I doubt I will get that many steps in...and I might work my arms a bit more but I can't see it like any cleaning I might do could be any more taxing than that...

    Just my opinion...

  • bobshuckleberry
    bobshuckleberry Posts: 281 Member
    I do when I clean/organize for other people (which is one of the side jobs I picked up) and if I do something out of the ordinary like walls or other heavy cleaning that does increase my heart rate and cause me to sweat.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
    bobshuckleberry wrote: »
    I do when I clean/organize for other people (which is one of the side jobs I picked up) and if I do something out of the ordinary like walls or other heavy cleaning that does increase my heart rate and cause me to sweat.

    sweating is not a good indicator of effort or energy expenditure.

  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    bobshuckleberry wrote: »
    I do when I clean/organize for other people (which is one of the side jobs I picked up) and if I do something out of the ordinary like walls or other heavy cleaning that does increase my heart rate and cause me to sweat.

    sweating is not a good indicator of effort or energy expenditure.

    neither is heart rate like she also stated
  • cece1012003
    cece1012003 Posts: 11 Member
    I only log vigorous exercise that I do, like jump roping. Before I would do that and thought I had the allowance to eat more. Completely backfired. Now that I do only the vigorous, I seem to be shedding without compromising my body.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    Just to iterate.. I have a fitbit, and on the days that i do heavy cleaning or gardening etc it barely makes a blip on my overall daily calorie burn. There's absolutely NO comparison compared to when i actually exercise. So this tells me that logging household activities is a waste of time -for me- and will likely give an overestimate.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
    HealthyKatty wrote: »
    Basically title. I've seen you can add cleaning as an exercise, but it seems a bit weird to log it as one?
    Thoughts would be appreciated.

    No...even a sedentary activity level setting is going to account for general house work, cooking, etc.

    The only time I ever considered it was when we do our bi-annual deep clean which takes us most of the day or full days of landscape work...but really, those things are just one offs so I chalked them up to earning a couple of beers.
  • AMV91
    AMV91 Posts: 86 Member
    When I was 350+ pounds, yes I did. I would be sweating and my heart would be beating like mad whenever I did a full clean (scrubbing, changing sheets, laundry, washing walls, etc.)

    Once I got around 250 ish I stopped.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    HealthyKatty wrote: »
    Basically title. I've seen you can add cleaning as an exercise, but it seems a bit weird to log it as one?
    Thoughts would be appreciated.

    I don't. I wear a tracker so my steps count towards my daily activity.

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