Sweat while Cleaning!

I am so sorry I am destroying your excuse to go work out and leave hubby to clean the house... as long as my hubby doesn't read this over my shoulder while he's sweeping the floor I think I can get away with it.  Carrying on here, sorry off track a bit, I wanted to share with you the lovely calorie burning you can actually achieve in your own home doing the things that you are doing day in and day out.  Unless your me with an unemployed OCD cleaning hubby in the house lol.  Somehow our kids manage to create enough mess for us ALL the time though lol.

Now take doing your dishes.  I myself have a dishwasher and not even burning calories would make me not use it BUT if you do them by hand you wanna know how many calories that burns?!  Washing your dishes BY HAND can burn 65cal/hour.  NOW, if you are superwoman fast at doing dishes or are organized enough not to have an overflowing sink taking an hour might be a hassle but I know a way for you to UP this chore/workout.  Wash, then dry, then put away your dishes ONE AT A TIME.  Grueling? Yes, better workout?  FOR SURE!

UGH sweeping and mopping, some of my least favorite things to do but WOW you can really get a workout done doing it!!  When you are sweeping you burn about 37cal/30min and with mopping an average of 112cal/30min.  Your mopping workout can be turned into a really powerful workout if you do it the ole Cinderella way; on your hands and knees with lots of elbow grease!  Also you can get a better look at all the gross dirt you usually miss... I also end up cleaning the base boards when I do it this way. 

Now ironing I don't do EVER.  My hubby doesn't wear suites luckily but even if he did that guy would be ironing his own clothes... I don't even hang up any of my clothes in my closet, just goes straight into my dresser.  Anyways ironing burns a whopping 50cal/20min!!  Isn't that amazing?!?! I might just iron for no reason now!! 

Vacuuming is another chore that I don't have to do wince I don't have so much as a rug in my home.  In fact before I moved into this suite mine broke so we can't use it even if we wanted to.  For any 10 minutes that you vacuum you manage to burn 37 calories.  Which you can again add a little something something to by turning on some music or putting in your Ipod head phones and dancing around at the same time.  Face it, it will make it just that much more enjoyable. 

Last but not least is my most hated of ALL chores... laundry.  I don't mind DOING the laundry, its the folding I can't stand.  You can burn up to 73 calories in a period of 30 min.  I can't even think of a way for you to burn extra unless whilst standing there you could do squats and of course do what you can do with the dishes and put them away one article at a time, but honestly with the amount of laundry us moms have to do you would spend your whole day putting things away and folding them.  So I suggest the squats which is what I do when I unload the dishwasher!

I hope that this gives a good reason to do your chores... YA RIGHT!!



sources:
http://www.brighthub.com/health/fitness/articles/76402.aspx
http://hubpages.com/hub/BURN-HUNDREDS-OF-CALORIES-EVERYDAY-DOING-EVERYDAY-THINGS