10 Ways You Burn Calories without Realizing It

If you are anything like me, squeezing in a trip to the gym is difficult. I often feel guilty about not exercising enough. By the end of the day after working, caring for my baby, cooking, doing household chores, and running errands I’m exhausted.

Well, we might actually be burning more calories during the day doing normal activities than we think!

I found a nifty little exercise and activity calculator from ProHealth which tabulates the number of calories burned doing various activities and exercises. Here are ten common household activities along with the number of calories burned if you were to do the activity for one hour. For consistency, the following activities are for a 135 lbs. (61 kg) person.

Of course nothing can replace actual exercise, but it’s nice to know we are burning some calories even when we’re not at the gym. To compare, if you were to do a 60 minute low-impact aerobics workout, you would burn 304.96 calories.

Activity #1: Cleaning, moderate effort
Calories: 213.10

Activity #2: Cooking or food preparation
Calories: 154.31

Activity #3: Mowing lawn, general
Calories: 338.02

Activity #4: Child care (I’m assuming this means feeding, changing, etc.)
Calories: 183.71

Activity #5: Playing with children
Calories: 242.49

Activity #6: Pushing or pulling stroller with child
Calories: 154.31

Activity #7: Raking lawn
Calories: 242.49

Activity #8: Sweeping
Calories: 242.49

Activity #9: Walking, 3.0 mph, moderate pace, walking dog
Calories: 213.10

Activity #10: Moving household items, carrying boxes
Calories: 429.88

I feel better about not going to the gym already!

Click here to check out the exercise and activity calculator.