Cleaning = burning??

Haha, right there with you! I have a 3 1/2 year old and an almost 6 month old. The house is NEVER clean! I didn't even know there was a "cleaning" section. But, I sure love being able to enter "breastfeeding". I'm going to be sad when those extra calories don't come off.

I read about a study on this in the book "Switch". Basically, they educated one group of hotel maids on how much excercise/calories burned they had each day. The control group did not receive this information. The informed group lost more weight than the control group. This can be because they now saw themselves as 'exercisers', they put more zeal into their work, or adopted a healthier lifestyle based on this information. For whatever the reason, it worked. So go ahead and log your cleaning activities

Haha, by pure coincidence I had just logged some cleaning calories when I opened up the boards and saw this!

I'm set as sedentary so I log as much "movement"that causes me to sweat and puts my HR up as I can. I don't log 5 or 10 minutes of something inconsequential, but for gardening and cleaning I try to remember to wear my HRM and log the cals.

Last year I distinctly recall starting the HRM off in the morning, then walking the dog for an hour, weeding the garden and cutting the grass, then cleaning two fish tanks with a lot of physical effort - at the end of the day, after subtracting my BMR cals I'd burned nearly 1800 cals. I didn't log them all as it seemed excessive, but I did log half of them!

I had a mad hour of cleaning prior to my mother paying a visit on Friday. I forgot to wear my HRM, but for 90 minutes vigorous cleaning the sweat was pouring off me. So I logged an hours worth for a conservative 270 cals.

Hey, I'm fat so cleaning takes a lot of physical effort! But I also keep my diary private, to avoid unjust criticism....

It's not necessary to gang up on me or have attitude. I was just bringing up a point.... Of course certain exercises burn calories more efficiently than cleaning would. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But as someone mentioned, I do notice people who only log that and then complain that nothing is changing. Log cleaning, by all means! I understand your ideas.

I'm a little surprised by the disrespect of some people, when this site is intended for support and discussion. I'm not here to argue with anyone, just to talk. Just relax and be kind.

Can you say HYPOCRITE? I think it's disrespectful of you to start a topic about what other people are doing with the site, how supportive is that? And discussion implies that differing opinions are acceptable.

i think it depends on what kind of cleaning it means. if its a two minute vac around your living room and a flash wipe around with a bit of polish then no. but if you scrub your floors, kitchen and bathroom, clear out clutter and change beds and really clean ever surface of your house then you should log. i don't think when you see people who are so overweight that they have the energy or usually the time to deep clean there houses thoroughly. i know I've not been as thorough and as energetic in my housework since i got ill, and I put on weight. i have less energy since being overweight. so i know when i can give my house a deep clean and set off a sweat for 6-8 hours at a time then my adding 2-3 hours cleaning to my log is both going to help me loose and motivate me and show me how far from being inactive i have come. it also shows why i might feel exhausted and not have enough energy left to go work out in a gym with. when i scrub my tiled and hard floors on my hands and knees my abs shoulders and back muscles burn after and i'm covered in sweat so i think its as good as any work out or exercise program. and some people are sick or have health issues on here. I've seen ladies go from barely being able to walk around there house and not even making it outside to doing a little housework, progressing onto hour long elliptical work outs. we shouldn't undervalue the work that us women often do and we've been told through society the work we do is of no value. housework has value and if done effectively can be used as a calorie consuming productive and edifying exercise

I read about a study on this in the book "Switch". Basically, they educated one group of hotel maids on how much excercise/calories burned they had each day. The control group did not receive this information. The informed group lost more weight than the control group. This can be because they now saw themselves as 'exercisers', they put more zeal into their work, or adopted a healthier lifestyle based on this information. For whatever the reason, it worked. So go ahead and log your cleaning activities

agreed.
I've encouraged others to log as i do and they got more active just from by thinking of it as an exercise, and your much more likely to get on with it quickly than taking all day to get the tasks done.

It's not necessary to gang up on me or have attitude. I was just bringing up a point.... Of course certain exercises burn calories more efficiently than cleaning would. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But as someone mentioned, I do notice people who only log that and then complain that nothing is changing. Log cleaning, by all means! I understand your ideas.

I'm a little surprised by the disrespect of some people, when this site is intended for support and discussion. I'm not here to argue with anyone, just to talk. Just relax and be kind.

You asked...Don't get mad because they disagree with you.


Now I see the problem.....You're only 19, you think you know it all. lol

It irks me when people worry so much about what others do. When I had my profile set to sedentary, I logged cleaning as well as insanity works out. Calories burned are calories burned. Sedentary setting doesn't include those calories. In order to keep a moderate deficit, I tracked ALL activity. I've been very successful.

Explain to me how our bodies would know the difference between burning 100 calories from cleaning the kitchen or 100 calories from jogging on the tredmill.

Also, don't assume people who log things like cleaning use it as an "excuse to eat more". Some of us like keeping a moderate deficit so our metabolisms don't suck. I lost slowly with a small deficit and now I can maintain eating over 2000 calories a day. We're not a bunch of fatties looking for excuses to eat.

this. i say let them be. its their life, their deal, not yours. stop worrying about others business. don't be so easily frustrated with ppl. "don't worry, be happy" just smile and move on.

i count it as calories burned esp if i do lifting and climbing up stairs, hanging clothes, washing dishes and doing laundry (our washing machine is not like yours there in the US, sometimes we have to do things manually). I used to be lazy and hardly do any cleaning, even light ones and hardly ever cooked as well. Since i started this diet ive been doing more household chores, and cooking my own food. This has really been a lifestyle change for me, if it makes me sweat and move alot, i log it in.

It irks me when people post "cleaning" as their only workout for the day. It just seems like the exercise that should be logged is that intended for the purpose of... exercise? Anyone agree?
I dunno.... I managed to clean my house and work in my yard and remain fat.... Haha. Just a thought. Totally not ridiculing anyone or anything!!

yes you are ridiculing,and posting that your not does not change that. How does someone logging cleaning affect your life in any way?
Maybe we should all start logging calories from minding our own buisness??

I never log cleaning because i use to clean my house still when i wasn't trying to lose weight, i just see it as a regular daily activity that i will always do whether I'm trying to lose weight or not, but that's just me personally, each to their own x

^^^^^^^^^^ This

It's not necessary to gang up on me or have attitude. I was just bringing up a point.... Of course certain exercises burn calories more efficiently than cleaning would. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But as someone mentioned, I do notice people who only log that and then complain that nothing is changing. Log cleaning, by all means! I understand your ideas.

I'm a little surprised by the disrespect of some people, when this site is intended for support and discussion. I'm not here to argue with anyone, just to talk. Just relax and be kind.

Really? How dare anyone have any negitive thing to say to your very negitve post:huh:
Maybe you should re think what support is before you post something like this.

i logged cleaning yesterday, but i only do it when it is something out of the ordinary. With 5 kids I pretty much clean and pick up constantly. Yesterday I pulled the third row seat out of my suv, took out the car seats and drove my truck down to the manual car wash and spent 45 minutes vacuuming out my truck and then washed it (very quickly as you pay by the minute) and then cleaned all the interior trim. I was definitely sweating and my heart rate was up. I did that and wasn't able to go to the gym.

i didnt eat those calories back, but i wanted to log it.

I'm with you OP.. Cleaning, and things like grocery shopping/walking around the mall do not get logged in my exercise diary. My view is they were a part of your life before.. and you did it without thinking it was exercise, so why is it suddenly exercise?

If I do happen to clean, shop, w/e and I'm more hungry then I eat a bit more.. if I'm not, then I don't.

Also as you found out.. this is a very controversial topic. People are very sensitive about their cleaning calories... and how dare anyone ask a simple question about logging them or not.

I walked my dogs around the neighborhood before I ever discovered MFP. I hike into neighboring towns on a regular basis.By your logic, I should not log these things because I did them before I start using MFP.

How about your BMR? Your BMR is the amount of calories you burn while doing absolutely nothing but breathing and staying alive...certainly less burn per hour than a stroll in a mall, which you said should not be counted. By your logic, we should not consider our BMR as calories burned, either, although it is several hundred calories a day.

I log what I log because it counts, and I have lost the weight to prove it. Nothing like a little bit of basic math and science to make something happen.

Is BMR an exercise? No.. So then it has nothing to do with this post. BMR is something used to figure out how much we should eat a minimum per day.. and it's actually several thousand calories per day.. not several hundred.

I have lost weight too.. 30 pounds and 6 sizes. I did it by logging what I did in the gym(cardio and weights) and purposeful exercise outside my gym(walking around our local lake). If I happened to walk to our local grocery store, then no I do not count that as exercise because it's something I would be doing normally anyway and is not "extra".

Does my logic make a bit more sense now?

I totally agree with you! If I worked in the yard really hard that day, I'm not going to work out that night. But I'm also not going to log it as exercise so I can eat more.

Why not log it? I worked in the yard for 4 hours and 15 minutes digging holes for plants, laying out straw, pulling weeds... and my HRM said I burned just over 1,000 calories. I am certainly logging it, as it is not my usual sedentary day sitting at my desk.