WoW is this really possible?

cupcakes8kr
cupcakes8kr Posts: 97 Member
edited October 4 in Fitness and Exercise
Hi everyone, need some imput. I purchased a new HRM ( other one broke) . Wore it for the first time while cleaning the house. It registered that I burned 418 caloris? Is that possible? I didn't even wash floors.

Thanks
Sophie

Replies

  • foremant86
    foremant86 Posts: 1,115 Member
    Hmm I dunno. I don't think HRM's can accurately track things like cleaning, but i'm no expert.

    They're made for tracking true cardio exercise.
  • wareagle8706
    wareagle8706 Posts: 1,090 Member
    How long did you clean the dang house????? HAHA

    Yeah it's possible. I mean, HRM's generally are very accurate. Depending on your weight, how much effort your exerted and how long you did it then yeah, it's a definite possibility that's accurate.
  • mrmanmeat
    mrmanmeat Posts: 1,968 Member
    Hi everyone, need some imput. I purchased a new HRM ( other one broke) . Wore it for the first time while cleaning the house. It registered that I burned 418 caloris? Is that possible? I didn't even wash floors.

    Thanks
    Sophie

    Possible? Yes. Your body burns calories daily even if you're laying in coma.

    That said, I find it worthless to count things such as cleaning the house as exercise calories. You're only going to hurt yourself in my opinion.
  • cupcakes8kr
    cupcakes8kr Posts: 97 Member
    Hmmmm, that would make more sense
  • mrmanmeat
    mrmanmeat Posts: 1,968 Member
    Hmm I dunno. I don't think HRM's can accurately track things like cleaning, but i'm no expert.

    They're made for tracking true cardio exercise.

    They're made for tracking your heart rate and the ratio of calories burned to that. They can track calories for anything as long as you have a heart beat.. but that doesn't mean you should count EVERYTHING you do as an exercise.
  • Jeff92se
    Jeff92se Posts: 3,369 Member
    Were you running around like a crazed monkey and wear a backpack full of bricks? hehe.

    I would be suspect of those numbers.
  • DigitalAlchemie
    DigitalAlchemie Posts: 1
    To get a more accurate number of extra calories burned you might wanna wear it when you're not doing anything for the same amount of time, and subtract that from how much it registered. We're all always passively burning some calories just be being alive but I don't think you would count the baseline metabolic functions as exercise.
  • cupcakes8kr
    cupcakes8kr Posts: 97 Member
    LOL I cleaned for over two hours.
    I just bought the HRM and was testing it out - normally I don't count that as true exercise.

    Thanks everyone
  • cupcakes8kr
    cupcakes8kr Posts: 97 Member
    LOL Thanks for the vision of a crazed monkey Jeff made me smile
  • wareagle8706
    wareagle8706 Posts: 1,090 Member
    Cleaning the house is true cardio exercise, especially for more overweight people because it's a pretty difficult task for some people. Hell, I work up a sweating vacuuming the floor. Anything that gets your heart rate going and you breaking a sweat is true exercise. There is no manual that lays out what is considered "real" exercise and what isn't. :)
  • BArdovino78
    BArdovino78 Posts: 66
    I would say no. And have you programmed it to your age, weight, height, etc, etc?
  • cupcakes8kr
    cupcakes8kr Posts: 97 Member
    Yes , all set for my age, weight etc. I just deceided to take 1/2 of that as calories burned,
  • somigliana
    somigliana Posts: 314 Member
    I wear a bodymediafit band, and house cleaning burns more calories for me than going out for a walk, depending on how vigorously I clean. (Being on my feet with light activity during the weekend burns more calories than sitting at work all day and then exercising hard for 60 minutes).
  • Larius
    Larius Posts: 507 Member
    There is no manual that lays out what is considered "real" exercise and what isn't. :)

    Sure there is, and it's quite simple. If you did it specifically for exercise, it's exercise and you count the Calories. If you would have done it anyways, such as cleaning or walking around the mall shopping, it's not exercise. There is some gray area however, because if you went to mall specifically to get exercise rather than to shop, then it counts because it was done just for exercise.
  • poustotah
    poustotah Posts: 1,121 Member
    Based on my stats - I wear an HRM when I exercise - if I were to do a cardio exercise, I burn at least 10 calories per minute. So in 2 hours that would get me 1200 calories that I've burnt. Since cleaning the house is a lot less intensive than cardio, for 2 hours of work, 400 calories would sound about right to me.
  • JThomas61
    JThomas61 Posts: 892
    I would say no. And have you programmed it to your age, weight, height, etc, etc?

    Definately agree with the above statement.
  • ElizabethRoad
    ElizabethRoad Posts: 5,138 Member
    I think it's possible. You'd burn that much in 2 hours by walking at a moderate pace. But like others said, do you really want to consider that exercise? Even a sedentary lifestyle takes into account regular stuff like housecleaning.
  • juleseybaby
    juleseybaby Posts: 712 Member
    I would count it if it was something OUTSIDE of my normal activity levels.

    And yes - it is possible to get a burn like that. Because of my size, I burn about 1000 in about 55 minutes of Zumba. This is with me trying to keep my arms below my heart for the most part so that my heart rate doesn't get too high. However, my friend (who is much smaller and works out a heck of a lot harder) only gets about a 700 calorie burn.
  • Jeff92se
    Jeff92se Posts: 3,369 Member
    On the flip side, if you are doing all of this at a fast pace, it could count. Work up a sweat? But IMHO, it might be just light walking as far as calories go
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    No.
  • 1goodymom67
    1goodymom67 Posts: 125
    Woohoo!! I want that HRM. Seriously, maybe b/c you were working. So, I'd go with it.
  • aimeeturner
    aimeeturner Posts: 225 Member
    What you do have to take into consideration is how many calories your body would have burned by just lying in bed for that same length of time. To get your true caloric burn doing a specific activity, you would subtract your basal metabolic caloric burn (for the amount of time you were engaged in the activity) from the total caloric burn shown on your HRM. I don't really understand why people would say that you shouldn't count cleaning house as a caloric burn. If you clean like I do, I am sweaty when I finish, so I know I am burning some calories. Also, people need to take into consideration that everyone is going to burn at a different rate depending on your age, weight, sex, height, etc. So, unless they know all of that information (assuming you have it programmed in your HRM acurately and you own a good quality HRM) no one can really give you a definitive answer to this question.
  • armymil
    armymil Posts: 163 Member
    Not sure if someone has said it already. Sorry in advanced!

    Basically, have to do this one way or the other. If you use "sedentary" or whatever option you choose from MFP, you can't count cleaning. This is part of that formula.

    On the other hand, if you want to do the formulas yourself to be near 100% accurate, then you have to count the calories minus the amount of calories that you would have been doing. If you normally sit on the couch, find out how many calories you burn sitting down then subtract the 2 to find what you should add to MFP.

    If you burned 200 sitting on the couch in the same amount of time, but 400 while cleaning, you should use 200.

    I am out of hands, but one other option is to do the basic rate at which you burn calories using those formulas out there and count EVERYTHING from walking to sitting to lying down, etc. Then you can add these calories at 400. But this requires daily monitoring.
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