Maintaining Your Home Can Be Great Exercise!

When it comes to burning calories, most people envision tank tops, gym shorts, running shoes, and workouts at the gym.  Fortunately, there are numerous other ways to burn calories that don’t require getting changed in the locker room, dumbbells and treadmills!  Activities geared towards maintaining your home, and common household chores, are great alternatives to burning additional calories to making the trip to the local gym.  You are lifting, pushing, pulling, and moving in a wide variety of ways that definitely burn calories and challenge the body!  Here we get to take a look at common household maintenance activities that burn significant calories.

Burning Calories Doing Common Home Maintenance Activities

An infographic recently published by the website YourGreenPal.com outlined the approximate calories burned doing common household maintenance activities.

To burn 136 calories (the equivalent of one half of a slice of cheese pizza), a 150 pound person needs to cycle at a moderate pace for 30 minutes.  Home maintenance activities that burn the same number of calories include:

• Plumbing – 1 hour (34 calories/15 min)
• Wiring – 1 hour (34 calories/15 min)

To burn 238 calories (the equivalent of one batter-fried chicken thigh), a 150 pound person needs to row at a moderate pace for 30 minutes. Alternative home maintenance activities that burn the same amount of calories include:

• Laying or removing carpet – 1 hour (60 calories/15 min)
• Laying tile or linoleum – 1 hour (60 calories/15 min)
• Painting or washing a fence – 1 hour (60 calories/15 min)
• Repairing appliances – 1 hour (60 calories/15 min)
• Sanding floors with a power sander – 1 hour (60 calories/15 min)

To burn 272 calories (the equivalent of a single slice of cheese pizza), a 150 pound person needs to lift weights (moderately) for 68 minutes.  To burn the same number of calories, they can do the following home maintenance activities:

• Cleaning gutters – 1 hour (68 calories/15 min)
• Hanging storm windows – 1 hour (68 calories/15 min)
• Spreading dirt with a shovel – 1 hour (68 calories/15 min)

To burn 340 calories (the equivalent of a Burger King Whopper Jr. Sandwich), a 150 pound person needs to jog at a moderate pace for 43 minutes.  The following home maintenance activities burn the same amount of calories:

• Building a fence – 1 hour (85 calories/15 min)
• Carpentry – 1 hour (85 calories/15 min)
• Roofing – 1 hour (85 calories/15 min)

To burn 576 calories (the equivalent of a McDonald’s Sausage Biscuit with Egg), a 150 pound person needs to run (at a pace of 6 miles/hour) for 53 minutes.

• Raking leaves – 1 hour and 30 minutes (96 calories/15 min)
• Mowing the lawn with a push mower – 1 hour and 27 minutes (108 calories/15 min)
• Shoveling snow – 1 hour (144 calories/15 min)

Food for Thought …

Whether you are not into fitness at all or are a fitness veteran, it’s important to know that household work, renovations, and manual work do burn calories and can take the place of a regular workout at the gym.  In addition, the movements involved in this type of work may provide benefits that a traditional workout at the gym may not be able to offer.  Don’t procrastinate on the “home projects” and kill two birds with one stone.  Why not take the time to update and maintain your home, while burning significant calories in the process!