I know that I am kind of lazy... but I am looking to make changes and new friends

iwriteprofessionally
iwriteprofessionally Posts: 18 Member
in Getting Started
I am a swim instructor with a spare tire... however since starting with myfitnesspal I have started walking my dog more. I am trying to do it 8 laps around my development per day or two hours. I was thrilled to learn that washing dishes by hand burns 160 calories because our dishwasher took a pooh during Tropical Storm Fred. That will make me happy until it's replaced. I am going to figure out how many calories I burn for sweeping and folding laundry and do that tomorrow. Why not, right? I have been counting the swim lessons that I teach as exercise and have been trying to get there fifteen to twenty minutes early to swim some laps while waiting for my student to show up. That has helped a lot too. I am going to start training with a personal trainer at work starting on October 21 and have gone in a few times to use the elliptical, but I much prefer the laps in the pool. It's worth it though in the end, and I would love to make some new connections.

Replies

  • daniwebster_94
    daniwebster_94 Posts: 13 Member
    Hi im alil lazy at times an want to change that hope we can be friends :)
  • BuddhaBunnyFTW
    BuddhaBunnyFTW Posts: 157 Member
    I'm lazy too.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    iwriteprofessionally wrote: »
    I am a swim instructor with a spare tire... however since starting with myfitnesspal I have started walking my dog more. I am trying to do it 8 laps around my development per day or two hours. I was thrilled to learn that washing dishes by hand burns 160 calories because our dishwasher took a pooh during Tropical Storm Fred. That will make me happy until it's replaced. I am going to figure out how many calories I burn for sweeping and folding laundry and do that tomorrow. Why not, right? I have been counting the swim lessons that I teach as exercise and have been trying to get there fifteen to twenty minutes early to swim some laps while waiting for my student to show up. That has helped a lot too. I am going to start training with a personal trainer at work starting on October 21 and have gone in a few times to use the elliptical, but I much prefer the laps in the pool. It's worth it though in the end, and I would love to make some new connections.

    I think it's legit to count some hand dishwashing, as you used to use a dishwasher. I would caution you against counting routine chores, however. I don't count the first hour of cooking or first half hour of cleaning I do. However, if someone went from zero cooking to cooking more, it should be ok to count that.

    I am preparing to move, and am doing an extraordinary amount of cleaning, so am counting that, as it goes above and beyond my normal routine.
  • LeeH31
    LeeH31 Posts: 312 Member
    @sijomial I wonder what you would have thunk of me counting doing laundry using a scrub board today??? 😜 I am a throwback that likes my white dishcloths and towels WHITE and the stupid new front load washers just don't get them clean. Hence, I have turned into an old-fashioned washer woman.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    iwriteprofessionally wrote: »
    I am a swim instructor with a spare tire... however since starting with myfitnesspal I have started walking my dog more. I am trying to do it 8 laps around my development per day or two hours. I was thrilled to learn that washing dishes by hand burns 160 calories because our dishwasher took a pooh during Tropical Storm Fred. That will make me happy until it's replaced. I am going to figure out how many calories I burn for sweeping and folding laundry and do that tomorrow. Why not, right? I have been counting the swim lessons that I teach as exercise and have been trying to get there fifteen to twenty minutes early to swim some laps while waiting for my student to show up. That has helped a lot too. I am going to start training with a personal trainer at work starting on October 21 and have gone in a few times to use the elliptical, but I much prefer the laps in the pool. It's worth it though in the end, and I would love to make some new connections.

    I think it's legit to count some hand dishwashing, as you used to use a dishwasher. I would caution you against counting routine chores, however. I don't count the first hour of cooking or first half hour of cleaning I do. However, if someone went from zero cooking to cooking more, it should be ok to count that.

    I am preparing to move, and am doing an extraordinary amount of cleaning, so am counting that, as it goes above and beyond my normal routine.

    Yeah, this is how I approach it too. If it's something I do regularly (like walking a bunch in daily life), I call it activity level and include it (and that would include weekly dish washing). If I have several days of well beyond normal activity (as with moving), even if it doesn't fall within a typical exercise category, I will add it in.

    That said -- maybe because my mom always rinsed before loading the dishwasher and I thus do too -- handwashing vs dishwasher for me I don't believe adds any significant cals. I often spend a weekend day cooking a bunch but don't add extra cals since it's mainly standing more and maybe mixing and so on or moving heavy dishes and often if I hadn't done that I might have done other errands or gardened or mowed the lawn or some such, and all that is in my weekly activity total.

    If you can, one way to handle all this is get a step tracker, choose sedentary, and sync with MFP, and it will give you extra cals for more active days. You can still add on non step exercise like swimming (or something like running if you specify the time).
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,607 Member
    Hand dishwashing is supposedly (per research) about a 2.3 MET activity, similar METs to light stretching or yoga. For me (in the lower 120s pounds), I'd need to hand-wash dishes for about an hour and ten minutes to burn 160 calories, but that includes the base BMR calories, so more time to burn that many *net* calories.. I always wash dishes by hand. I don't usually do it for an hour and ten minutes (or more). I never count it as exercise: It's in my daily life activity. I doubt that METs is a great way to estimate dish-washing (I doubt the burn varies much with body weight), but it's the closest to real estimating method I can think of. Activity tracker estimate would be much lower, I think.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    LeeH31 wrote: »
    @sijomial I wonder what you would have thunk of me counting doing laundry using a scrub board today??? 😜 I am a throwback that likes my white dishcloths and towels WHITE and the stupid new front load washers just don't get them clean. Hence, I have turned into an old-fashioned washer woman.
    @LeeH31
    I would have thought "good on you".
    But I wouldn't think of it as something worth logging for extra calories and I doubt it burns significant calories anyway.

    Just like I didn't log gardening yesterday, or car maintenance, or decorating, or walking to the shops or crawling around the floor chasing my granddaughter today. They are part of my usual activity and captured in my activity setting.
    Just like I wouldn't think of taking away some calories if I have a less active day - it averages out.

    I may well log an estimate for 4hrs of heavy duty gardening as that would be both exceptional and actually involve a lot of movement and shifting a lot of weight.
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    Yeah, the really consistent stuff that's just life is just my activity level. I don't log every 15 minute agility or disc session with the dogs that happen 4-5 times a day, I don't log the fairly short (couple of mile) daily hikes with them or when I'm training a client's dog. They're the things that determine my activity level.

    I DO log the day long hikes, or agility trials when I'm out all day and running and walking much more. Those are outside the daily/activity above and beyond my daily things.



  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    Those of you who have mentioned "it's in my activity level" - I assume you're not set at Sedentary? What are you set at?
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    edited September 2021
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Those of you who have mentioned "it's in my activity level" - I assume you're not set at Sedentary? What are you set at?

    Lightly active every season but summer, active summer (because my frequency and duration of daily activity goes up a LOT). Still log the more purposeful exercise on top though which does increase the calories I eat.
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    edited September 2021
    FTR: Sedentary vs lightly active when I check in my goals seems to be a difference of about 200 calories. That It isn't a whole heck of a lot. My actual day job is sitting on my butt working at a desk from home though so the short training sessions and short hike a day, and my current weight (128) that's probably just about dead on, on average (ie: Accounting the odd day of doing more and the odd day of 'I don't wannnnnnnnnnnnna go climb a muddy hill in the rain').
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    edited September 2021
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Those of you who have mentioned "it's in my activity level" - I assume you're not set at Sedentary? What are you set at?

    When I had a desk job I was Lightly Active, retired and my activity (and my setting) went up another level.

    Sedentary also includes steps, expected movement, a person's work and daily chores of course....
    It shouldn't be seen as sitting all of the time and every tiny bit of movement is extra which seems to be some people's interpretation.

    Reasonable to tailor the normal vs exceptional differently though the principal is the same, even if it's mostly for motivation not to be sedentary for someone's health.
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Those of you who have mentioned "it's in my activity level" - I assume you're not set at Sedentary? What are you set at?

    When I had a desk job I was Lightly Active, retired and my activity (and my setting) went up another level.

    Sedentary also includes steps, expected movement, a person's work and daily chores of course....
    It shouldn't be interpreted as sitting all of the time and every tiny bit of movement is extra which seems to be some people's interpretation.

    Reasonable to tailor the normal vs exceptional differently though the principal is the same, even if it's mostly for motivation not to be sedentary for someone's health.

    This. The threshold for light active is fairly low, but it's still what... at least 4000-5000 steps a day, I think. Sedentary is still assuming you getting the mail, walking around your house or office, running errands, doing laundry, vacuuming your floors, and mowing a reasonable lawn here and there.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,607 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Those of you who have mentioned "it's in my activity level" - I assume you're not set at Sedentary? What are you set at?

    I'm set at active, which I'm emphatically *not* outside of intentional (separately logged) exercise, but it's where I need to set to get MFP even close on base calories. I do set eating calorie goal manually (vs. letting MFP calc it) . . . but some of the attagirl messaging clearly uses the MFP calc, and set on active MFP still thinks I'd gain slowly when I know I'd actually lose slowly. Looking at non-exercise steps, I'm actually somewhere around the sedentary to lightly active boundary, pretty well down into sedentary in Winter, more up in lightly active in summer, steps-wise.
  • ManifestYourFuture
    ManifestYourFuture Posts: 5 Member
    I would love to have more friends on here. I am “new” and starting again on mfp. Several years ago, I lost quite a bit of weight using MFP and got down to my healthy weight. It’s crept back up since then and I am beginning again. I need to lose about forty pounds. I’m a mom and homesteader

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