If you have to ask, it’s not a workout

Shopping and vacuuming, yes. Hefting your toddler? No. Although everything you do burns calories, not everything qualifies as exercise. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the definition of exercise is “physical activity done at a level that increases your heart rate and/or challenges your muscles.”

Guidelines for this year’s MIT Fitness Challenge also offer the reminder “if you go to the gym to work out on a rowing machine, count only the time you spend rowing, along with warm-up and cool-down activities. Don’t count time spent waiting for a machine, showering, or changing.”

Evan Johnson, a doctoral candidate at the University of Connecticut’s department of kinesiology and a personal trainer, said if you want to see changes to your body or health benefits like lower blood pressure, you must practice the overload principle. That means asking your body to do more than it is used to doing. Take an evening walk every night? Walk at a faster pace or stay out for a longer duration — 45 minutes instead of 30, for example.

Johnson sees the possibility for exercise everywhere.

“There are plenty of healthy people out there who don’t lift weights or go to the gym,” he said.

An active lifestyle keeps them healthy.

Scotia, N.Y.-based personal trainer Jeannine Trimboli said she often sees people compartmentalizing exercise as a duty to be checked off a list rather than a lifestyle. Taken together, exercise tips — like parking at a distance from the store and walking through the parking lot rather than circling for the closest space; taking the stairs; and joining your kids while they play on the playground rather than sitting nearby — all add up to a healthful lifestyle, when they are combined with smart food choices.

That said, Trimboli acknowledged that people over-calculate how much exercise they are really getting — even when they sweat it out on a machine at the gym.

“The more proficient you get at an activity, be it the elliptical, the treadmill or a rowing machine, the easier it is for your body,” she said. So even if the machine says you burned a specific number of calories, if you keep doing the same thing, you’re no longer challenging your body.

EXERCISE MISBELIEFS

Carrying your child may leave your arms sore, but it doesn’t engage your cardiovascular system. Put Junior in a stroller and walk briskly for 20 minutes.

Making whoopee doesn’t increase your heart rate enough to qualify as exercise.

A “hectic day” does not equal exercise.

If you run up and down the stairs, great. But don’t give yourself credit if you trudge up holding the railing.

If you’re curious about just how many calories you burned while sleeping (45 per hour, based on a 150-pound person), mowing the lawn (324) or watching TV (72) the American Cancer Society offers a calculator. To find it online go to cancer.org/healthy and look under “Tools and calculators.”