Cleaning counts as an exercise?

I set my activity level as sedentary because 1/2 the week I work a desk job. The days I am not at work I am power cleaning and chasing a toddler. I count the heavy cleaning I do on those days because my my activity level setting doesnt account for it. Does that make sense? I would say if you hve set it at moderate, I would not count it.

Well, people count a whole lot less too. It all depends on what your activity level is set to.

I don't clean often at all. I work all day and my husband is home, so he cleans. When I do clean I get my heart rate up just as much as I would if I was on a walk, and I do count my walks. Also, my activity is set to sedentary, so anything I do other than sit on my butt at the office gets logged. If it was set for active or even lightly active I wouldn't log it.

i actually dance when i clean. it's the only way i can enjoy it, so i count it as exercise.

Interesting that you asked that question. I don't generally count stuff like this unless I exert a lot of energy. I found out yesterday that cooking was an activity and I counted it because I had been on my feet for @ 2 hours straight back and forth between the sink, stove, pantry and fridge cooking two seperate meals for myself and my husband. After all that I was so tired, I didn't even want to eat and I was pooped!!

I only count cardio.

I have my activity level set at sedentary as well, for me, cleaning, raking leaves, bowling or fishing (which is listed) if just part of life. A lot of times we over estimate how much physical activity or calories we burn so I'd rather not include normal daily activities.

To each their own - Do what works for you.

some do, most don't. the only time it makes sense is if it is something abnormal. something you do everyday won't burn calories like a real workout.

You will get very heated answers to this question.

There's no reason for anyone to give a heated answer...it's simple science. To lose weight, you must burn more calories than you take in per day.

If you want to truly understand your body and your actual 24 hour calorie burns, including cleaning or standing vs. sitting, as well as intentional exercise, I highly recommend getting a BodyMedia Fit Armband. It not only gives you accurate burns for YOUR intentional exercise, it's extremely eye opening as far as how your total 24 hour calorie burn (which is what MFP uses to set your goals--but they use an average for "someone like you") can vary from day to day depending on what you do that particular day. It's the best investment I've ever made in my health and I can't recommend it enough.

So, to answer the OP's question...yes, cleaning burns calories, which raises your 24 hour burn. Your 24 hour calorie burn is the number that you will subtract 500 calories from if you want to lose 1 lb per week. I personally adjust my calorie goal daily based on what my BMF band tells me I am burning for that day (at about 1pm, it uses algorithms based on your history to tell you what you will most likely burn for the rest of the day) . So, if one day, I'm sitting at my desk all day and then go home and sit in front of the TV the rest of the night, I will burn less thanI would the next day, if I *stand* at my desk all day and go home in the evening and clean my house for a couple of hours before I sit down and watch TV. Based on what I've learned from my BMF over a long period of time, the difference between those 2 days could be as much as 400-500 calories with no intentional exercise done on either day! (I usually exercise every day...these are for the sake of illustration However, without an armband measuring your total daily burn, "cleaning" is extremely subjective. It would be really hard to "guess" how much you really burn doing things like that because of the starting and stopping and variations in intensity. So, if you don't have an armband, and want to count cleaning and other similar activities, you should be extremely conservative in how many calories you count as burned (if you eat back your exercise calories). Same with shopping in the mall for 5 or 6 hours....you'd be surprised how much variation in calorie burn you can have even between shopping trips. Suffice it to say, no where near as much as you (or MFP) would think

And the extra calories I may of earned by ironing, cleaning etc are a bonus and mean i lose more weight.

Hopefully, but if you are consistently burning 300-600 more calories per day (2100-4200 per week) than MFP and you think you are, then you will eventually stop losing.

I spent much of Christmas break cleaning out and repairing a large shed. This involved moving a lot of heavy items and shelves, carrying around full sheets of 1/2" treated plywood, drilling holes in very old, very hard Southern Pine, and going up and down a ladder.
Yeah, I figured that counted as "heavy cleaning" exercise!

But I don't count normal stuff like cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming.

Cleaning can be a great workout. I have three young children and my husband is no better than they are about cleaning up. I spend about an hour everyday doing heavy cleaning and another 30 min of light housework. I burn over 300 calories a day just cleaning the house.