Logging daily activities?

If you set your activity level to sedentary, the difference between being in a coma and daily activities for most women is about 200 calories. BMR x 1.2 = TDEE.

It has nothing to do with NEW activities. It has to do with activities that are outside of a "sedentary" level. Outside of that extra 200 or so calories.

Most people became fat because they ate 3 or 4000 calories a day. Not because they cleaned their house.

Daily / everyday-life activities should go towards determining your activity level.

If you're hard labour / cleaning your house every day etc, then setting your level as "very active" is more accurate than logging housework.

If you set your activity level to sedentary, the difference between being in a coma and daily activities for most women is about 200 calories. BMR x 1.2 = TDEE.

It has nothing to do with NEW activities. It has to do with activities that are outside of a "sedentary" level. Outside of that extra 200 or so calories.

Most people became fat because they ate 3 or 4000 calories a day. Not because they cleaned their house.

this^^^^

I do log cleaning, shoveling and yard work as part of daily activities. Simply because these are things I don't do everyday. For example, this weekend I moved brush around for burning for about 2 hours. This was labor intensive, got my heart rate up and got me sweating. I used this as my exercise.

My rule of thumb is to log it if it's something I don't do everyday and gets my heart beating fast.

If the activity is something I do during the normal course of my day, like doing dishes or sweeping, then no, I don't log it. But if I do a marathon cleaning session, like vacuuming every square inch of my house (basement, ground floor, upstairs, furniture, etc), then I will log it since it's not something I do every day.

^^^^^^ This.
I do laundry and dishes and things every day, but we're moving in a few months so I'm packing boxes and hauling them around, and doing extra deep cleaning so on days I do more then usual I log it. Or if I steam my floors or something (steamers full of water are heavy as CRAP, and you have to move them sooo slow my arms feel like they're gonna fall off!), I do try to adjust though. if I clean for 2 hours, then maybe I log 1. Because I probably took a break or my heart rate wasn't up the whole time or something.
*edit to add*
I have a lightly active job but I have it set as sedentary because sometimes work is slow and theres less to do so I'm sedentary, but some days are busy and I move a lot, so I just leave it at sedentary.

Oh good question!! I'm a college student and walk everywhere on campus, but when I'm not walking I'm sitting on my butt studying for hours on end! What kind of lifestyle do y'all think that is?

Also, I live up a giant hill. I usually take the bus back home, but on nice days I walk (it's a really, REALLY big hill). Should I could that as exercise? I am always winded afterwards and with a backpack full of books I definitely burn some calories!


What do y'all think?? Message/add me if you want!

Oh good question!! I'm a college student and walk everywhere on campus, but when I'm not walking I'm sitting on my butt studying for hours on end! What kind of lifestyle do y'all think that is?

Also, I live up a giant hill. I usually take the bus back home, but on nice days I walk (it's a really, REALLY big hill). Should I could that as exercise? I am always winded afterwards and with a backpack full of books I definitely burn some calories!


What do y'all think?? Message/add me if you want!

I think if you're out of breath and working muscles thats definitly exercise! I would get a heart rate monitor watch (it's not as acurate as a chest strap but I wear one all day so when I do a lot of walking (sometimes I have to walk around washington dc for my job) I can keep a quick count of how many calories I burn or you can just log it in mfp as walking adn let it estimate for you.

walking is great for you

I also wanted to share something my friend who is a nutritionist explained to me since I was complaining about not losing any weight. I have been training for a half marathon and running 20-30 miles a week and my calorie goal was 1200 a day. I was logging my runs and the calories burned which on some days would total over 600 cals. My mistake was that I was then eating 1800 calories on a day like that because I thought that the 600 burned allowed me to eat that much more. I guess my point is that even if you log your activities and exercises it is not an automatic "ok" to eat away those burned calories. Of course it is important to fuel your body before and after strenuous exercises but the snack should be something small...not 600 calories worth I hope this helps at least helps somebody understand the benefits (or downsides) of logging activity on this site.

I'm set on sedentary. I only log workouts and cycling around town. sometimes walking if it's a decent distance. I would never record cleaning or daily activities. for me it's psychological - knowing that i log physical activity makes me more likely to do it in the first place (e.g. more likely to cycle instead of jumping in the car). however, cleaning is not something that i particularly want to encourage myself to do more of (lol) as i don't see it contributing massively to weight loss, and i don't think i could be accurate enough in calories burned anyway (don't own an HRM). i worry that if i started logging daily activities i would end up kidding myself as to how many calories i was using up.

hope that makes sense!

OP said:
I see people logging daily activities, like cleaning, carrying laundry, carrying a baby. Doesn't mfp already account for daily calories burned? So isn't someone that logs those activities doing themselves a disservice by counting them towards cardio? Seems like an easy way to pump up your diary and convince yourself you can eat more. Unless of course, you never clean your house, carry laundry, carry your baby, etc and these truly are new activities to you. I clean my house, carry laundry up and down stairs daily, carry my 5 month old quite a bit. I also work 9 hours a day, seven of which is walking around a nursing home and kitchen. But I am still fat, which is why I am using this site. If I loggd all that as extra calories burned, and ate to make up those calories, wouldn't I be just as fat as I was before starting on mfp?

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love your thinking , they are deluding themselves

First I would like to start this post by qualifying it with....I am just asking questions so don't get all defensive and rude. I am not judging anyone here! Trying to educate myself.

I see people logging daily activities, like cleaning, carrying laundry, carrying a baby. Doesn't mfp already account for daily calories burned? So isn't someone that logs those activities doing themselves a disservice by counting them towards cardio? Seems like an easy way to pump up your diary and convince yourself you can eat more. Unless of course, you never clean your house, carry laundry, carry your baby, etc and these truly are new activities to you. I clean my house, carry laundry up and down stairs daily, carry my 5 month old quite a bit. I also work 9 hours a day, seven of which is walking around a nursing home and kitchen. But I am still fat, which is why I am using this site. If I loggd all that as extra calories burned, and ate to make up those calories, wouldn't I be just as fat as I was before starting on mfp?

I think your question is totally reasonable, and it's one I've mulled over a lot.

Here's what I do:

I am a Stay-at-home-mom. I set my activity level to "sedentary." I figure I spend a lot of day sitting down, just like someone with an office job does. And, someone with an office job does do some housework when they get home. So, I set "sedentary" as my base.

I don't count a lot of my housework - I don't count preparing meals, doing general tidying in the evenings, etc. However, I do a session of intensive cleaning and I count that. I'll try to explain what I do as briefly as possible -

I make up a big to-do list of things to clean. I emphasize things that require a lot of movement (hoovering, cleaning baseboards, making beds) and leave off stuff like washing dishes - those get done at other times, anyway. I make the list deliberately inefficient/strenuous. For example, there are three beds upstairs. I'll put each bed on the list as a separate thing. The point is - I have to go back to the list to cross off one before going back up to make another bed. That's three trips up the stairs instead of one. I make the list so that I'm doing lots of separate trips up the stairs, breaking things up so that I have to go back to the list on the kitchen counter. When I do this session, I make a point of really hustling. I run up the steps two-at-a-time. I move furniture and clean things that probably don't even need to be cleaned. Does my sofa need to be moved for hoovering every day? No. But, I do it, anyway. :laugh: And, here's the final thing I do so that I can call it exercise: Before I cross anything off the list, I have to do a set of exercises like push-ups, crunches, squats, etc. I keep myself moving as quickly as safely/sanely possible and I'm frequently puffing a bit!

I set a stopwatch app on my phone and I go and run through the list as fast as I can. If I'm interrupted by the phone or doorbell or something, I'll pause the stopwatch until I can resume my routine.

I generally take about 90 minutes to two hours to get through the list.

When I'm all done, I go to a website that lists calories burned for various activities by weight and time. I calculate that. Then, I calculate the calories that I would have burned if I'd been sitting at my computer posting nonsense to MFP, and I subtract that. The difference I enter as calories burned.

I think this makes as much sense as putting on a low-impact aerobics DVD and exercising. It get my house really, really clean and it's not boring like dancing around my living room would be.

I have set my profile as sedentary because 3 days a week I most certainly am, 2 days a week at work I am on my feet all day and I tend to log that as 1 or 2 hours cleaning light effort as thats closest to what it is, 1 day a week I am uni which is a 30 minute walk each way and I walk all dinner hour so I log that, on weekends I am on my feet a lot and I log cleaning , which in this cage involves 3 6ft animal hutches being scrubbed and 5 3ft animal cages being scrubbed as well as cleaning up the entire house and I then log about half the time only to account for over estimates.

It depends on your situation and how hard you clean because the 2 hours it takes to do the hutches and cages in super tiring and I am up and down stairs all the time with waste and fresh bedding and carrying the animals to the outside runs and back. I wouldnt log having a quick sweep up and doing the dishes ever haha that wont burn much at all.

I log ea sports active and my boxing ps3 game and I will log jogging when I start doing some.

I eat below my BMR on average so these things should be considered for me IMHO.

I also wanted to share something my friend who is a nutritionist explained to me since I was complaining about not losing any weight. I have been training for a half marathon and running 20-30 miles a week and my calorie goal was 1200 a day. I was logging my runs and the calories burned which on some days would total over 600 cals. My mistake was that I was then eating 1800 calories on a day like that because I thought that the 600 burned allowed me to eat that much more. I guess my point is that even if you log your activities and exercises it is not an automatic "ok" to eat away those burned calories. Of course it is important to fuel your body before and after strenuous exercises but the snack should be something small...not 600 calories worth I hope this helps at least helps somebody understand the benefits (or downsides) of logging activity on this site.

hi there,
there are lots of misconceptions about a need to eat back your burned calories/
Could you tell us what did your nutritionist ,as a qualified person, say about eating away your burned calories?

thanks

Yes, climbing that hill with your back pack should definitely be counted as exercise especially if you are breathing heavy by the time you get to the top. By the way, you look great.
Grandma Laura

If we set out activity level at sedentary it only accounts for breathing.

Not true - it accounts for minimal movement throughout the day (5,000 steps or less). Mine is set at sedentary and I wear a pedometer to know exactly how many steps I take throughout the day. I log calories burned for every step taken above and beyond 5,000 in a day.