Collecting maple sap

GoodLardy
GoodLardy Posts: 163 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Anyone have a good way of logging this as exercise? I tend to skip other exercise on days I do this as the collecting can be strenuous. It can be from one to 8 hours a day on the days I collect, carrying buckets and lifting them, 25 lbs (?) per bucket, in the woods, stepping over logs and some hills.

Replies

  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    Do you have a fitbit or similar device? I think that is the only way you would get something resembling an estimate.
  • GoodLardy
    GoodLardy Posts: 163 Member
    @MikePTY
    Unfortunately I do not have a fit bit. I’m just trying figure out how many calories to eat back with out overeating them back ( big problem for me) Maybe I’ll look into it, but probably not in my current budget :)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,223 Member
    I'd say to count the active time as walking, if you mostly are, and it isn't reflected in your activity-level setting on MFP. The increment from the lifting wouldn't be huge.
  • GoodLardy
    GoodLardy Posts: 163 Member
    giantrobot_powerlifting wrote: »
    Now I’ve read everything.

    That’s very encouraging, thanks for your input.
  • GoodLardy
    GoodLardy Posts: 163 Member
    @AnnPT77
    Thank you, I’ll do that. It’s not reflected in my activity level as i bounce between sedentary and lightly active.
  • giantrobot_powerlifting
    giantrobot_powerlifting Posts: 2,598 Member
    GoodLardy wrote: »
    giantrobot_powerlifting wrote: »
    Now I’ve read everything.

    That’s very encouraging, thanks for your input.
    Often, people will post that their laundry exercise, or their vacuuming, or their lawn mowing, but this is a new one.

    While you will be doing strenuous work it is not exercise since there is no specific adaption to be made from the work that you will be doing. (Get stronger, faster etc.) Best it will do is raise your NEAT but that’s about it.

    I was hoping this thread was about how delicious and rewarding collecting homemade syrup is.
  • GoodLardy
    GoodLardy Posts: 163 Member
    edited April 2019
    @giantrobot_powerlifting

    I’ve seen the posts you refer to as well, and as I do those things daily, I don’t consider them exercise. And they aren’t anything close to work. But since I only do the sap thing a few weeks per year outside of regular activity , I thought it may change my calorie requirements for the day. Forgive for my ignorance.

    Edited to add that my homemade syrup is delicious and it is incredibly rewarding to have collected and cooked it myself :)
  • giantrobot_powerlifting
    giantrobot_powerlifting Posts: 2,598 Member
    edited April 2019
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    giantrobot_powerlifting wrote: »
    GoodLardy wrote: »
    giantrobot_powerlifting wrote: »
    Now I’ve read everything.

    That’s very encouraging, thanks for your input.
    Often, people will post that their laundry exercise, or their vacuuming, or their lawn mowing, but this is a new one.

    While you will be doing strenuous work it is not exercise since there is no specific adaption to be made from the work that you will be doing. (Get stronger, faster etc.) Best it will do is raise your NEAT but that’s about it.

    I was hoping this thread was about how delicious and rewarding collecting homemade syrup is.

    If someone has an active job regularly, they set their activity level higher, and get a higher calorie goal, to achieve whatever their sensible weight loss rate is.

    If someone does an active job irregularly, then logging it as exercise accomplishes the same thing. Recording no extra calorie expenditure, if it's a large amount of the activity, is not helpful to maintaining a good energy level . . . because, as you observe, it raises your NEAT. But it's not in OP's NEAT on the MFP books (I asked), so it makes sense to log it.

    Fitness isn't the only reason to log something as exercise. In fact, if my only goal were fitness (and not proper fueling for whatever I'm doing, daily life plus exercise), then I wouldn't log exercise calories ever at all, I'd just keep up with my fitness records (pace, HR, distance, reps/sets/weights, whatever).

    I wouldn't log normal amounts of laundry, mowing, vacuuming either. It's in my activity level. But if I spend all day double-digging garden beds, or (as in one instance) spend all day climbing ladders and mounting shelf brackets and shelves along one wall of my garage (when usually I'm sedentary), then you'd better believe I'm logging something on the exercise. I'd probably lowball it, but zero is guaranteed to be wrong.

    Up to 8 hours of sap-wrangling isn't zero calorie burn, or even close.

    Recently I had to take a factory job to make ends meet. 12 hour days on my feet three days in a row, and the following week 4 days on my feet in a row bending, packing, and picking things up for 36-48 hours a week. In addition, I trained in the gym 4 days a week for two hours for an average total of 8 hours of exercise a week.

    Can you guess which one, the job or the gym, I logged as exercise?
  • giantrobot_powerlifting
    giantrobot_powerlifting Posts: 2,598 Member
    GoodLardy wrote: »
    @giantrobot_powerlifting

    I’ve seen the posts you refer to as well, and as I do those things daily, I don’t consider them exercise. And they aren’t anything close to work. But since I only do the sap thing a few weeks per year outside of regular activity , I thought it may change my calorie requirements for the day. Forgive for my ignorance.

    Edited to add that my homemade syrup is delicious and it is incredibly rewarding to have collected and cooked it myself :)
    Your not totally wrong. The extra work will burn more calories and could lead to a deficit in calories and maybe minor weight loss.

    Btw, I’m totally having pancakes for breakfast tomorrow .
  • Keto_Vampire
    Keto_Vampire Posts: 1,670 Member
    edited April 2019
    @giantrobot_powerlifting has a good point in differentiating NEAT with purposeful/regimen bouts of exercise
    So many posts here with people trying to categorize ordinary activities (doing laundry, pacing around, shopping, etc.) as purposeful exercise. Pretty sure your body is smart enough to know you won't get any cardiovascular benefits simply labeling 150mins/week of chores as "cardio" (vs. 150min of 4mph brisk walking @ 10 degree incline, etc. - activity which one would do in addition to daily routine of chores, work, etc.)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,223 Member
    Keto_Vampire wrote: »
    @giantrobot_powerlifting has a good point in differentiating NEAT with purposeful/regimen bouts of exercise
    So many posts here with people trying to categorize ordinary activities (doing laundry, pacing around, shopping, etc.) as purposeful exercise. Pretty sure your body is smart enough to know you won't get any cardiovascular benefits simply labeling 150mins/week of chores as "cardio" (vs. 150min of 4mph brisk walking @ 10 degree incline, etc. - activity which one would do in addition to daily routine of chores, work, etc.)

    Sure. I don't disagree with that point, in general. As I said, I don't log routine grocery shopping, cleaning, etc., as exercise. It's things I usually do, part of normal daily activity level, reflected in my average NEAT/TDEE expectations from a few years of calorie counting.

    I wouldn't put an unusual "8 hours of walking while hefting 25 pound buckets" in the same category, at least not for all of us. (People count hiking as exercise, too, and no one blinks (that I've seen). Hiking with buckets of sap is materially different, because . . . ?)

    IMO, someone who's calorie counting can reasonably wish to estimate those calories and eat them back. Absent a fitness tracker (which would estimate & sync it), the only way to do that is to enter it as a so-called CV exercise, whether it has notable CV benefits or not.

    For those of us with lower TDEEs, it may not make sense to take something that's perhaps 20-25% of our base calories as an extra deficit, especially if already losing at a sensible rate (or maintaining). That seems like a valid choice, to me. It may not make sense for someone with a higher routine daily activity level, who's younger, taller, heavier, for whom it's less strenuous or unusual, etc. . . . or who just has different preferences.

    The OP asked how one could estimate sap-collecting calories. I made a suggestion. Others suggest not counting it. OK. That's an option, too.

    I grant that the question was posted in "Fitness and Exercise", which might color how one would answer it.
  • Keto_Vampire
    Keto_Vampire Posts: 1,670 Member
    edited April 2019
    Must admit though due to how variable the activity is (1-8 hours) and how routinely done (once a week, once a month, etc.?) there is ambiguity as to whether this should be factored into OP's activity (NEAT/"active/sedentary/light activity/etc." - MFP TDEE setting) or as exercise (seems more appropriate based on how infrequently OP reports activity). If I were if OP's shoes, I'd just forget "cardio" for the day
  • lalalacroix
    lalalacroix Posts: 834 Member
    I think a better estimate for you might be a hiking estimate with a pack weight added. Personally I find the MFP one to be too high so I use the Omni Hiking calculator.

    I'm glad you came on to ask this question. I've been remodeling a school bus into a tiny home lately. This is about a three month project. Some days are pretty easy and some days are exhaustive. I didn't want to change my activity level because it isn't permanent and the harder work tends to be once or twice per week. I've decided to add a couple hours of carpentry to my log. I realize what you and I are doing isn't "exercise" but it does burn calories, which should mean more food in my belly.
  • MimiOfTheFraserValley
    MimiOfTheFraserValley Posts: 108 Member
    I've read this thread with interest. It's something I've always wondered about, collecting maple sap & the whole maple syrup & maple sugar process. Plus the end product is incredibly wonderful. It's a good query you've brought forth about how to log it. There are so many activities that aren't listed that you have to guess how to log them.

    For me, I log all possible activities that I do, whether daily housework & errands that I run & all or the cleaning that I do at work or actual workouts, including my bike rides. There's a reason for this, & it is because I find all activities purposeful & meaningful & help to keep me active. I know several other people who see it this way, but I totally get why others wouldn't. To me, it's important to log it all because, for so long, I was highly inactive. I'd mainly do only what was absolutely necessary. Now, though, I do much more. I started logging everything I was doing as a way to prove that I could do it, even things that were basic & that everyone should be doing on a regular basis.

    I had health issues that caused me to cut down greatly on what I could physically do. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that I went overboard on being inactive, but there were days when I could barely move.

    Anyway, as I got better, I started to move more. So I started logging everything I did because, in my book, they counted. From not doing even the most basic of household tasks to being out & about, including having a job in which I do a lot of physical work, mostly heavy cleaning, it's been a good thing.

    So I do count it all as exercise. To me, exercise is moving my body & keeping active, whether it's housework or other cleaning to what's counted as an actual workout, like my bike rides. I don't see the problem with logging it all. I still keep my calories as close to the basic limit as much as possible.

    I hope that this helps to put a bit of perspective on why some of us log everything. At least this is why I do so, & I know a few other people who do this for the same or similar reasons.

    As I said, though, I do see why some of you who've shared here would only log your actual workouts. It's a matter of opinion, I guess, about who logs what & why. :)
  • MimiOfTheFraserValley
    MimiOfTheFraserValley Posts: 108 Member
    lalalacroix wrote: »
    I think a better estimate for you might be a hiking estimate with a pack weight added. Personally I find the MFP one to be too high so I use the Omni Hiking calculator.

    I'm glad you came on to ask this question. I've been remodeling a school bus into a tiny home lately. This is about a three month project. Some days are pretty easy and some days are exhaustive. I didn't want to change my activity level because it isn't permanent and the harder work tends to be once or twice per week. I've decided to add a couple hours of carpentry to my log. I realize what you and I are doing isn't "exercise" but it does burn calories, which should mean more food in my belly.

    I think it is all exercise. After all, you're moving & keeping active. No, I wouldn't adjust my activity level, either, but I would log whatever I could. :)

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