Do you consider this exercise?

this post is stupid. some people have health problems and taking the trash out might be a big deal to them. if dont like id dont log it. its an OPTION. TO EACH THERE OWN. no one should judge another persons "progress"

Let me tell ya, any decent nutritionist or trainor will tell you that "household chores" that involve up and down stairs, squatting/bending over, sweeping or vacumming, dusting (where your squatting/bending over/etc) will definately count as exercise. It raises your heartrate and elevates your core body temp (sweating) thus help you burn more calories than just at rest/watching tv, reading etc. Your losing weight is a combination of caloric intake/expenditure and nutrition, and if you dont keep tabs on all three, you'll be missing a chunk of info in your weight loss goal. Of course maybe your just looking to drop 1 or 2 lbs then its overkill, but if you have a significant goal (more muscle, less fat, or keep the muscle and just shave off the fat etc) than things like those activitites are best left (if possible) to be done on your rest days where it can be considered an active rest day..which bumps up your metabolism as well as your caloric expenditure for that day and gives you twice the benefit because your getting your blood to circulate more than normal thus aiding in getting oxygenated blood to the muscles (sore) that are recouperating.

Dont listen to opinions, get the facts and stay the course.

Thank GOD! Someone in this thread with a true understanding of what their talking about!!

What I think people tend to forget is there are different levels of exercise - extremely mild to extremely intense. It incorporates a wide variety of activities in the day, including the mundane ones. People are constantly burning calories so any form of exercise brings that calorie burn higher, as mild or as intense as the activity is.

While I personally don't log anything other than long walks, jogs or weight training I still count these activities as boosts throughout the day. By not logging it, I'm actually doing myself a favour because my deficit would be higher.

Yes, these are facts. Educate yourself people!

The point is to correct what MFP thinks you're burning in a day with your AMR.

I use a body media device to identify when I was burning, and I log as appropriate to square things up. If I lose weight I'm not adding enough exercise, if I gain weight I'm adding to much.

If you don't like the way I use MFP, you can ki$$ my *kitten*.

I have deep cleaned my house pretty much every day for the past 7 years, so I don't log it. Even now that I clean my house and my parents' house (because my mom is sick and can't do it anymore), I still don't log it. Since I've always cleaned, I don't see it as exercise.

if your settings are sedentary, it looks at your alloted calories like you never got out of bed. so, in theory, you should track all your movements. however, i think trips to the bathroom or walking to the kitchen, shouldnt be tracked, unless you have a body bug or something that you wear all day long and can acuratly log the exact number of extra calories you burnt past your allotted.

If i spend time cleaning, besides just wiping down the counter really quick, or some basic task, i log it, because im sedentary. if i had my settings at lightly active, i would never log cleaning. If i spend, say, 20 minutes (or longer) cleaning, then i log it, but any less, and i generally dont log it unless it was really strenuous and i was dripping sweat quickly or something. and i only log cooking if im making a big meal, i dont log making a sandwich.

you could also be cheating yourself by not logging little things, because if your allowed 1200 calories, the bare minimum and you burn 200 and dont log it, its like youve only eaten 1000 calories, putting yourself in jeopardy of starvation mode, your muscles eating each other to find the nutrition it needs, and so forth.

and just cuz u see friends log cleaning, doesnt mean they are actually cleaning. today i logged an activity as cleaning, even though i was walking all over the farm feeding the animals, and bringing in firewood, and those sorts of things. and after that i logged that i was moving boxes even though i was stacking firewood and moving branches and limbs that had got knocked down in the snow storm and pushing a wheelbarrel around the farm... never moved a single box.

If it is outside of my regular daily activities, I do log cleaning. I use my HRM and for instance the other day I cleaned for 3hrs and burned over 1000 cals. If it is just picking up around the house for 10 mins., no I don't log. I don't clean every day, therefore when I do it is time consuming and generally a vigorous effort. Also, I try not to worry about what others are doing and focus on myself. If something is working for someone, great for them!!

if your settings are sedentary, it looks at your alloted calories like you never got out of bed. so, in theory, you should track all your movements.

Nuh uh. Your BMR is what you'd burn if you were literally in bed all day - my bmr is 1600, my maintenance calories are 2000, because MFP accounts for things like bathroom trips, food preparation, light housework etc

Well let me chime in here. I just deep cleaned my house today. Mopped, vacuumed (including under beds) cleaned all the bathrooms and kitchen. This wasn't the normal, daily picking up that I do but a whole house clean. I wore my HRM while I did this for 4 hours and burned 799 calories. My activity level on here is set to sedentary and I sure as heck was NOT sedentary for those 4 hours. So I back out my existence calories for that time period and it's an extra 605 calories I burned today. You better believe I'm counting THAT.

Now, I do not count cooking dinner, picking up the house, taking out the trash, doing laundry, but over and above like today? You bet it's exercise.

I agree with this!! This is also how I do it!

If it is outside of my regular daily activities, I do log cleaning. I use my HRM and for instance the other day I cleaned for 3hrs and burned over 1000 cals. If it is just picking up around the house for 10 mins., no I don't log. I don't clean every day, therefore when I do it is time consuming and generally a vigorous effort. Also, I try not to worry about what others are doing and focus on myself. If something is working for someone, great for them!!

Very good point, I feel the same!

Unless its something I don't do often Like hours of moving boxes etc or MAJOR spring cleaning... I wouldn't log it. Because the cooking, cleaning, mopping, laundry etc. is stuff I normally do everyday and it clearly never helped me lose any additional weight before. I only count "exercising" - intentionally.

I am here to lose weight, and if I was to count every step I took or every movement I made as exercise I'd be cheating myself......the only time I consider any of those things exercise is when I'm like scrubbing the floor with a brush or shoveling snow because I break a sweat with those...........

I think you answered your own question as well as I would have.

Like so many have already said, whether or not I log 'daily-life' activities depends entirely on what they are.

Scrubbing floors? Heck yes. Vigorously scrubbing the tub? Yup. Vacuuming the whole freaking house with my monster vacuum? Absolutely (I don't count that as strength training, but I should -- seriously, the thing weighs like 25 pounds, and fights me every step of the way).

Likewise, when I shop, I don't dilly-dally. I hate shopping, and I come prepared with a list, so I stride on through like I'm on the march. Once in a while something'll catch my eye and I'll pause to check it out, but for the most part all my nutritional analysis and budgeting is done before I leave home. I generally walk as fast at the grocery as I do on the rare occasion that I walk for exercise -- which is pretty fast -- so, yup, I log that too.

I don't log these calories because I'm lazy and trying to pad my caloric allowance. Indeed, I log them in part because I'm *not* lazy, and I want to make sure I'm adequately replacing the calories I burn. Normally, I clock about one to two hundred miles per week on the bike. My commutes average between 15 and 19 MPH (depends on how many stoplights I hit!); training rides upwards of 21 MPH. Inadequate refueling has been a problem for me in the past, so it makes sense to log any activities that get the ol' heart rate up.

On the other hand .. Cooking? No. Washing dishes? No. Folding laundry? No, though I probably could count it because I'm forever having to chase the cat away from the laundry basket.

That said, if my health seriously limited my activity options and I was mostly confined to bed or a chair, I could see logging those. You have to start where you are. When I was recovering from mono over the course of fall semester, sometimes washing the dishes constituted a concentrated effort.

Ultimately, it's all pretty relative. We need to judge our methods by how they effect our own bodies, and we should probably try not to judge others by their methods.

I have a very seditary job, so on the weekend if I clean my house for 3 hours and find myself going up and down 2 flights of stairs then yes, I count it, but I also do my workout on top of that. If you do it daily then you are considered to live a more active lifestyle then someone like me who has a desk job. You dig?

I only log it when I go to work and clean the office. I never log cleaning my own house. I do log shoveling because it is something I don't do every day!

I'm sure I'm going to make a big fuss over this but I feel it's something I must share........do you consider cooking, cleaning, walking to and from kitchen, bathroom etc in your house and other daily activities exercise????

I don't understand that completely.......Anything I have to do/regularly do in a day I don't count as exercise........Cooking myself dinner isn't exercise, I have to eat to live and I'd be doing it anyway.......cleaning my house is something I have to do unless I want mice and ants everywhere and walking to the kitchen and bathroom and back........it just doesn't make sense to me?

I am here to lose weight, and if I was to count every step I took or every movement I made as exercise I'd be cheating myself......the only time I consider any of those things exercise is when I'm like scrubbing the floor with a brush or shoveling snow because I break a sweat with those...........

I guess I just needed to put my 2 cents in on the subject.......

No, I don't. I also laugh at people who log taking out the trash, or cleaning.

I feel like they're just being lazy, hoping that that'll count towards exercise so they don't actually have to get their *kitten* in gear.


Breaking a sweat doesn't relate to losing weight all the time. Sweating is just your body's cooling system. If you're wrapped up in a jacket shoveling snow, is your heart rate really over 100? You're just warm b/c you're not sitting still outside in the cold, so your body is cooling itself.

I hardly sweat at the gym, but I can knock out 600 calories rather quickly

^^^^^
THIS
It's activity - not exercise.