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In this series, Surprising Ways to Slash 500 Calories, we discuss a variety of ways you can easily eliminate 500 calories from your daily routine resulting in an easy weight loss of one pound per week. You may not even think these food or beverage items “count”, but they do. Our job is to help you in your weight loss goals and even if you were to burn one less calorie day; it would add up over time.
Vigorous house cleaning and major household projects, can definitely lead to major calories burned if you’re ambitious enough. Folding socks isn’t going to make a significant dent in your waistline, but more active efforts surely will. Now, we’re not suggesting that you give up deliberate exercise in lieu of dusting the blinds. Everyone needs to pursue cardiovascular, strength training, stretching and balance training beyond what can be done with rubber gloves. However! Bending, reaching, scrubbing and zooming back and forth around your house can certainly slash some legit calories.
- Vacuuming for approximately 30 minutes can result in approximately 150 calories burned
- Washing dishes by hand and putting them away two to three times a day can burn about 110 calories
- Mowing your lawn for half an hour with a push mower can result in 210 calories burned; for one full hour – 420 calories burned.
- Cleaning every corner of your kitchen including tables, stove top, floor, etc. could burn 200 calories in 30 minutes.
Bigger projects which require larger motions or lifting of heavy objects will burn greater amounts of calories than simpler smaller tasks. So next time you need to paint, scrub the floor, rearrange the furniture or worse … don’t feel so bad! Consider it all extra progress towards your weight loss goals. Find some more secrets to burning calories while doing housework here.
Do you ever break a sweat while cleaning your house? What job feels most like exercise to you?
