Are Cleaning Calories Slacking Calories?

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LastSixtySix
LastSixtySix Posts: 352 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Yesterday on the MFP boards, I discovered to my utter shock and dismay that many on MFP consider logging housecleaning movement as slacking. The only consideration they give to this category of body movement and effort is "well, if the person is very sedentary then it is probably okay". :angry:

Normally, when I do a good, top to bottom no rug left unturned or cushion ignored, I take that day as my one cardio day for the week and after three to four hours of huffing and puffing, I've burned quite a few calories. But, this was not a normal day. Today, I'd test the hypothesis: Are Cleaning Calories Slacking Calories?

DATE OF EXPERIMENT: February 24, 2012. My measurement device is my relatively new (less than a month) Polar FT7 HRM. First, I went to the gym and did my normal resistance training for an hour. Then, I came home and began a good vacuum of my house. This is only vacuuming - not dusting, cleaning, scrubbing, picking up or putting away. Since my resting heart rate is 60 bpm, any sustained effort above 90 bmp is respectable "movement". In the old days, movement meant exercise.

RESULT: Cleaning Calories are not slacking calories. Granted, without additional effort such as every eight minutes or so lifting 20-lbs of rice or kitty kibbles over ones head to keep in the Explosive and Sought-For Cardio Zone, one stays mostly in the Fat Burning Zone. That effect lowers the number of calories compared to a training resistance effort but not by much (see the data and graphs below).

CONCLUSION: Anyone who doubts the efficacy of cleaning as a means to burn serious fat must have a maid! :laugh:

It'd be fun to hear y'all's response to this "little" experiment. What has been your experience regarding any kind of manual labor be it cleaning, snow shoveling, gardening, or moving dirt.

cleanslack.jpg

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Replies

  • YoungerNextYear59937
    YoungerNextYear59937 Posts: 90 Member
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    You crack me up! :laugh: No wonder I haven't burned any calories--I'm a TERRIBLE housekeeper! :embarassed:
  • rjt1000
    rjt1000 Posts: 700 Member
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    But is this activity you did before you started your weight loss journey? I clean, I mow grass, I build things, I do all sorts of activities and always have. What I log as exercise is stuff that I do now that I didn't do before. Because, how I ate and my previous activity got me where I was. What I log is the differences between how I behaved (eating and activity) then and how I behave now. Because it's the difference that leads to my weight loss.

    If I rode my bike 10 miles a day for the past 10 years and was still overweight, logging the bike activity as exercise would lead to misleading calorie info. My past is/was the baseline that MFP started with and MFP told me "cut this many calories from your baseline by eating less and exercising more." And if I log activity that I always did before, I'm lying to MFP that I'm altering my baseline. Right?

    My view, it only gets logged if it's something I've changed from my old way of life.
  • carrie_eggo
    carrie_eggo Posts: 1,396 Member
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    Good for you! The only problem I have with it is when people log everyday things like housework, eat back the calories, and then complain because they're not losing weight. If you are losing weight and it is working for you, then do it! And good for you for taking the time to share the results of your experiment. :smile:
  • Tree72
    Tree72 Posts: 942 Member
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    I used to doubt how many calories I actually could burn doing things like cleaning or cooking until I got a BodyBugg. My days with the largest TDEE have all been days that I haven't done any "exercise", just cleaning and cooking. For example, on December 31st while getting ready for my New Year's party my TDEE was just over 3200. My normal TDEE on a day where I go to the gym for at least an hour is seldom over 2500.

    The bottom line for me is that my body doesn't care how I burn the calories, it just knows I need more fuel when I do. So I try to eat to maintain a consistent deficit. I'd really be short-changing myself if I started trying to analyze if particular calories burned "counted" or not.
  • TourThePast
    TourThePast Posts: 1,753 Member
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    I'm a bit of a housework slacker, so when I do really clean, I move furniture and it's quite a workout.

    What really really burns the calories though is gardening, on a busy day in the spring / summer I can be out there for ten hours and a lot of it is solid hard labour. I've tried wearing my HRM and it's akin to a tough workout in the gym.

    Often, I get engrossed in my tasks and only notice the time when either it gets dark or I suddenly go faint from lack of food. Which is pretty dumb - whoops!
  • KAHoff2011
    KAHoff2011 Posts: 5
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    CONCLUSION: Anyone who doubts the efficacy of cleaning as a means to burn serious fat must have a maid! :laugh:


    I love this! Thanks for sharing! I knew counting my cleaning caloriers was not for naught :wink:
  • kstep88
    kstep88 Posts: 403 Member
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    I only log mine when I do a deap clean on my house.. Cleaning up after 2 kids, a husband and a dog (lol) can be tough work! I burned around 600 calories the last time I did it, and I was pouring sweat like I had just finished a Jillian Video.

    I see how some say that they still got fat while cleaning there house...but they were also eating poorly.
    I don't think daily pick ups should be counted, but big cleans? Yes.

    and of course the hrm is a great way to know if it's worth logging
  • Chagama
    Chagama Posts: 543 Member
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    I applaud you for conducting and experiment and reaching your own conclusion instead of blindly listening to opinions from people who may, or may not, know what they are talking about. With that kind of initiative and focus, I am sure you will be successful.
  • madameduffay
    madameduffay Posts: 166 Member
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    You crack me up! :laugh: No wonder I haven't burned any calories--I'm a TERRIBLE housekeeper! :embarassed:

    LOL, awesome.
  • PinkEarthMama
    PinkEarthMama Posts: 987 Member
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    When i clean, I clean for HOURS.

    Sure as heck I'm going to log it.

    When I stop losing weight, I won't log it anymore.
  • roadworthy
    roadworthy Posts: 130
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    You read my mind...my polar and I were busy for a little bit and needed to share

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/502758-so-much-talk-about-cleaning-calories

    Not as technical as yours I might add;)
  • treetop57
    treetop57 Posts: 1,578 Member
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    You rock, LastSixtySix! Thanks for performing the experiment and posting the results.
  • LadyBeryl
    LadyBeryl Posts: 344 Member
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    My thighs and head are now telling me to fire my cleaning lady but my heart tells me that I'm lazy and she needs the money. :laugh:
  • crodrigu73
    crodrigu73 Posts: 134 Member
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    Thank you!

    I usually log cleaning every Saturday and Sunday. In the past, I have gotten a few comments about this. In my opinion, I sit on my behind 40 hours a week crunching numbers, on Saturday and Sunday I do all my cleaning, laundry, shopping and usually cook ahead for the week. I work very hard on my weekend and love the data to support my logging.
  • Prefessa
    Prefessa Posts: 90
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    From what I see....Cleaning, cooking, shopping, and even fishing is considered steady state cardio....the fly in the ointment is folks forget to remove there base calories.....

    My TDEE is 2160 or 90 cals/hr

    6 hrs of fishing standing up in a boat, in the winter, burns 1860 cals according to MFP....but If I didn't fish and just went to work that day...I would burn 6hrs x 90 cals/hr=540 cals

    So my NET energy expenditure is 1860-540=1320 cals.

    Very important to remopve base calories from Toatal calories for long duration/steady state exercise, like cooking, cleaning, mowing lawns, fishing(Active fishing...surf casting, fly fishing, fishing standing up from a boat thats pitching and yawling....NOT siting on a lounge chair on the beach with the rod in a sand spike)

    Now for very vigorous exercise...it doesn't really make a difference....40 minutes of cycling at 17 mph burns 720 calories....40 minutes normally burns 60 cals if sedentary.

    This is why folks seem to do better with vigorus training. But I will tell you that the dyed in the sox, stripermen I knew in the old days would finish the season looking like walking anatomy charts, and plump back up in the off season. Anyone who is throwing a plug into the suds while walking 2-3 miles of beach in big clunky waders is gonna burn some serious calories.
  • Donna908
    Donna908 Posts: 21 Member
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    Great post. I've been on the fence about this but wasn't leaning toward any direction. Thank you for putting time into this.
  • LastSixtySix
    LastSixtySix Posts: 352 Member
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    Good for you! The only problem I have with it is when people log everyday things like housework, eat back the calories, and then complain because they're not losing weight. If you are losing weight and it is working for you, then do it! And good for you for taking the time to share the results of your experiment. :smile:

    I so agree with that. . .the difference is working hard enough to get into the Fat Zone with the heart rate and then maintaining that for over twenty minutes at a time. Normally, these days, when I clean house, I'll actually work in the Cardio Zone with my heart rate by stopping often to do push ups, lift heavy loads over my head, run up and down the stairs, to keep my workout really pumping. But for this one, I just wanted to see what a "normal good clean" would do.

    If people don't know what it feels like to have their heart rate in the Fat Burning Zone or Cardio Zone, they may be afraid. We need to encourage them to try and keep trying and get a professional hands on opinion if necessary. We don't need to diss their efforts. Movement is movement. Getting off the couch and using the body one has neglected for so long is a good thing. Baby steps. . .
  • victoria4321
    victoria4321 Posts: 1,719 Member
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    But is this activity you did before you started your weight loss journey? I clean, I mow grass, I build things, I do all sorts of activities and always have. What I log as exercise is stuff that I do now that I didn't do before. Because, how I ate and my previous activity got me where I was. What I log is the differences between how I behaved (eating and activity) then and how I behave now. Because it's the difference that leads to my weight loss.

    If I rode my bike 10 miles a day for the past 10 years and was still overweight, logging the bike activity as exercise would lead to misleading calorie info. My past is/was the baseline that MFP started with and MFP told me "cut this many calories from your baseline by eating less and exercising more." And if I log activity that I always did before, I'm lying to MFP that I'm altering my baseline. Right?

    My view, it only gets logged if it's something I've changed from my old way of life.

    This is why I don't count cleaning. I've always cleaned my house but I was still overweight. If cleaning was really vigorous enough to even be logging then I would have been in better shape at the start of all this. You also burn calories sleeping, showering, and pretty much all day long. Do you count all the other normal day to day activities as well?
  • LastSixtySix
    LastSixtySix Posts: 352 Member
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    That graph wasn't big enough. Cardio zone is in aqua, fat zone in purple. Let's see if this helps see the data better - cardio zone side by side with fat-burning cleaning zone:

    cleanslack-1.jpg
  • croope89
    croope89 Posts: 1
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    All i know is when i started housekeeping at the hospital, in combination with a lot of walking to take the bus, i went from a size 16 to a 10 over the summer. And i also know that i get very hungry at work, because I'm burning so many calories. So damn straight cleaning counts for calorie burn. I'm just trying to figure out how much exactly...

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