food

The best news about housework. Ever.

Housework. Exercise.

Two areas I would never claim to be an expert on (or even a willing participant of!)

Generally I tend to avoid doing any more than washing up when there are no more clean forks left or running to catch the bus. Shows how little I know! I could be killing two birds with one stone, because gousework has the potential to be counted as exercise. WHO KNEW? It feels like cheating but doing the vacuuming or dusting is actually a pretty good way to drop some calories.

Yep, I saw that. Your ears pricked up in a way they never have about cleaning (that sort of interest is normally reserved for any combination of the words ‘free’ and ‘food’).

How many calories are we talking about? Research conducted by Harvard University on around 80 housekeepers has shown that a number of daily cleaning tasks can have an average burn of up to 325 calories per hour:

Sweeping the floor will burn 240 calories an hour. Getting down and dirty (no not like that – that way only burns 110 calories) to scrub the floor will burn 320 calories an hour.

General cleaning that most of us will have to do every day or so (things like washing the dishes or doing your laundry) has an hourly calorie burn of 200. Think of all that exercise you have been doing unknowingly! And now erase the guilt you felt for cutting yourself that particularly large piece of cake yesterday.

Vaccuming or hanging out the washing burns approximately 260 calories an hour.

Mowing the lawn burns 325 calories an hour on average.

Cooking burns 150 calories an hour

Dusting, picking up clothes or wiping down benchtops will cause you to lose an average of 100 calories an hour.

Grocery shopping will burn 90 calories an hour. I wonder if this also can be extended to all forms of shopping?  I hope so – more excuses to shop are always a good thing. “Have you been shoe shopping AGAIN?” “No, I was exercising…”

So next time you skip the gym visit because you're tired from picking up after your kids all day, give yourself a pat on the back. You should be tired, you’ve really been working out AND getting the housework done at the same time! Now that’s what I call multitasking.

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