Have you ever wondered how many calories you can burn from cleaning and simple housework?

The answer is 200!

Kind of….

There are many different variables that effect how many calories you can burn during your cleaning workout such as:

• Time spent cleaning
• Intensity of work
• Your current fitness levels

Well I decided to do my own little experiment to see exactly how many calories I could burn while cleaning my spare bedroom.

After a 73 minute cleaning session, my body burned 198 calories and added 1,790 steps to my Fitbit tracker!

Is cleaning a room in your house going to burn as many calories as a 30 minute HIIT workout, or a 5 mile run?

NO. But it’s movement, and better than sitting around binge watching some nonsense on Netflix.

So get up off the couch and clean your house!

How Many Calories Can You Burn While Cleaning?

It’s hard to tell exactly how many calories you will burn while cleaning since there are so many different variables to factor in. But Malia Frey, the author of Calories Burned Cleaning House breaks down the most common housecleaning jobs along with the number of calories that a 150-pound person would burn while performing each activity.

She even includes a tool called “Learn How Many Calories You’re Burning” where it allows you to select an activity, add your duration and current weight.

Physical Activity Guidelines

So you don’t consider cleaning a form of exercise…but you can! Movement is movement right?

The number one way to improve your health is to eat healthier and move more. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, physical activity (PA) promotes normal growth and development and can make people feel better, sleep better, function better and reduce the risk of multiple chronic diseases.

Let’s say you live a sedentary lifestyle. Once you develop a habit of inactivity your body gets used to that feeling making it harder to change your ways. But research shows that health benefits of MOVEMENT will start immediately after exercise, and even short bursts of movement or physical activity are beneficial.

The physical activity guidelines for adults are as follows:

• At least 150 minutes to 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity PA

OR

• 75 minutes to 150 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic PA

OR

• An equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity aerobic activity.

An hour spent cleaning your spare bedroom would fall under moderate-intensity PA, and would leave you only needing 1.5 hours left for your minimum weekly PA requirement! (Of course I would recommend doing more than the bare minimum).

So my challenge to you is to get up, and go clean a room in your house to burn some extra calories and get your body moving. Start small, and build on your efforts every day.

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Find out why kids ages 18 and under need at least 60 minutes a day of physical activity HERE!

How Do I Start Adding Movement into my Life

There is no magical way to start adding movement to your life…you just do. You’ll get up every morning and remind yourself your body is important, and exercises is a must. It may not be an easy road, but it will be worth it.

Below I have listed a couple tips to help you turn a sedentary lifestyle into a powerhouse active mover.

First, you need to set goals. Goal setting will set you up for success, and help you stay accountable for the progress you do or don’t make.

Second, organize your life. Whether that be writing down a to do list and adding your movement onto that list, or literally organizing your life. Take a look at how organizing your home/space can actually make you happier. The more de-cluttered your mind is, the more prone you are to being active.

But why? Because it’s a upward or downward spiral which ever way you decide to look at it.

Think about it:

• When you’re happy you do everything you can to stay in that headspace.
• When you’re anxious and down, your mind does everything it can to stay in a dark place.

I talk about my experiences of when I lived out of state from my friends and family and how depressed I became in the dark winter months. I’ve always been into health and fitness, but once my head told my body “we’re done…time to sleep for days on end” it was so extremely hard to break that cycle. Take a look at one of my favorite articles I wrote called 15 Tips To Improve Your Mental Health to help you with the first steps of taking back your life.

And lastly, figure out your plan of action to achieve your goals.

Get Up And Clean Your Spare Bedroom

You opened this article for a reason. You were curious enough to know how many calories you can burn from cleaning. That tells me you are looking for ways to improve the quality of your life by associating cleaning as a form of physical activity. And I love that!

…or maybe you were just genuinely curious to know how many calories you can burn from cleaning your house. And I’m so happy you’re here!

What you didn’t expect was a lesson on why physical activity in our day to day lives is so important and how to get started with your daily movement. But I’m a PE teacher so never expect anything less from my blog 😉

Either way, I challenge you to burn an extra 200 calories today, by cleaning an area of your house. Don’t stop until it’s spotless!