Do you log all of your Activities?
 

I have perused some of the other threads in this section, and I've read that you can include activities such as housework and sleeping on your Activity log.

I just wondered how many of you input every detail of your activities or do you just put in specific workouts?

My 'lifestyle' is in there daily by default, but thus far I've only focused on entering deliberate exercise time.

Hi Smoosh! I'm with you. I only input my actual workouts in addition to my default lifestyle. I am assuming that my lifestyle includes activities such as sleep. Also when I do housework, I don't really feel the need to log that as an activity. I'm using the activity log strictly to keep track of my workouts so that when I look at my calender I know when I've actually worked out.

Have a great day! :)

I input every worthy detail in my activities page.

Anything I'm at for longer than 15 minutes or so usually goes into the log. I started off just doing the exercise part, but my lifestyle isn't always "seated with some movement", it's "stay-at-home-mom with 5 kids", which isn't a "lifestyle" option. Some days I sit a lot, like if we are on the road going somewhere far away. Other days I'm on my feet doing 62 loads of laundry, or taking the kids to the zoo. Other days I spend in the garden bent over pulling weeds or picking something.

I just use the Lifestyle. Tried the other way but found I was having to log on all day long.........since this is all new to me I may try it later on.

Love the food log, custom foods, journal and mood part tho. Food log has been a real help and eye opener. Since I am Gluten Free too reading and learning everyday.

Ditto for me.(albeit I'm a green Newbie !)
I figure seeing daily activities posted will keep me motivated to continue to be active.

When I started I logged everything from sleeping to child care to meal prep to weights and cardio. I found that I was only 50 to 100 calories over my lifestyle estimate on my exercise days, so I stopped logging activity.

I found it really helped me understand what impact my activities had on my calories burned in a day, just like the food log helped me understand what different foods did to my daily calorie intake.

i only log workouts.
 

It just felt a little silly to log the time I spent in a chair reading - though there is a catagory for that. My lifestyle, at least my workdays, pretty much match the lifestyle entry of sedentary with some movement. I do think that the suggestion that if you are at something consistently for 15 min (such as laundry or gardening,etc) i might tend to log that. We will see since i just started 01012011

I log the important stuff... sleep, a work out, walking, cutting the grass, etc. I don't log things like taking out the trash, playing cards, etc.

This is what I do as well--I have my half a dozen daily activities to which I add anything out of the ordinary. If it doesn't impact my calorie burn (plus or minus), I really don't care about it.

Regards,
Michael

I find there are some activities that loggin them helps me get motivated to get them done, such as cleaning. I should log my sleeping as I may be over-estimating my calorie consumption. I may try logging every thing for a week to see if it is close. It sounds like the estimates were reasonable for those who did that.

Mary

A good idea, I think, Mary.

This whole process is just an informed guess. Calorie intake can't be exact, and calorie burn can't either. So, we need to take our best guess and adjust the numbers to match reality.

Personally, I want enough of a buffer in my calculations that I'll always see a loss--it may vary from week to week, heck it may even stall for a week or two, but a downward trend is what we're looking for.

FitDay says I burn 2900 to 3100 cals a day, depending upon my activities. I keep my calorie intake to around 1500. Sometimes it gets close to 1600; on my one monthly planned (and I hate the word) "cheat" day, it may hit 3000 or more.

By keeping my goal as a 1500 calorie deficeit, on average (and the average is what we're interested in) I've sustained a pretty decent rate of loss. Granted, it's less now than when I was bigger with a 4000 cal a day burn, but a loss nonetheless.

I think this is where some folks get into trouble. If you try to maintain, say, a 500 cal deficeit, and have erred in either/or your cal intake/cal burn one could easily end up with a very small or even no deficeit at all. Better to err on the bigger deficeit side, IMHO.

Regards,
Michael

Thanks Michael

I was wondering -- does fitday adjust your calorie requirement as you lose and enter your new weight? I've been trying for a 1000 calorie defecit and losing. However I think it has been overestimating my calorie requirement when I just log in the "good" activities. Mary

Yes. My calorie burn has decreased a full 1000 cals since I started. You should see it go down as you enter your new weight. Look at your calories eaten vs. burned graph and eventually you'll see the yellow bars get shorter.

Regards,
Michael

I like to log shopping mall time, just because it helps justify the shopaholic in me! :S Other than that, I've only been logging deliberate exercise time, or really long bouts of housework (like 2 or 3 hour cleaning sessions before we have guests staying with us, etc.)