Yesterday I discussed how many calories could be burned by common outdoor chores. Today I wanted to look into how many calories one burns doing common housework.
No one has to tell me that housework burns calories. I feel the burn carrying laundry baskets from my upstairs to my basement and back up again. Sometimes the only thing that gets me through it is thinking of the calories I am burning. In fact, many household duties turned into calorie burning exercises make it more manageable. I am never sure how many calories I am burning but it feels like a ton or maybe that is just the weight of cleaning up after a family of six and one dog. So, I decided to check out how many calories are burned by cleaning a home and here is what I found.
Here is what I found per Web MD on the subject:
Major cleaning (turning mattresses, washing windows, washing the car): 175-250 calories per hour.
Moderate housecleaning (laundry loads, mopping and sweeping, vacuuming): 150-200 calories per hour
Light housecleaning (dusting, straightening up, taking out the trash): 120-170 calories per hour.
Child care: 300-600 calories per hour (depending on how old the kids are and how active they are)
Now, I am not sure about you but I think I could burn the full 600 taking care of four kids. I am not sure that house cleaning is truly a good sport as I can burn more in 30 minutes on the elliptical than major cleaning. Besides, who wants to heavy clean for an hour? All kidding aside, put in the elbow grease and burn a few extra calories. Eating right, staying fit, and putting in the burn on common chores will keep you trim. Just burning an extra 300 or more calories a month from your regular chores is nothing to sneeze at.
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