ahead of their own. With that in mind, many of you may think that being a stay-at-home mother leaves no room for exercise. That’s where you’re wrong.
Believe it or not, women who often do household chores are actually doing plenty of exercise and lose large amounts of calories just by cleaning the house. Here are some activities that, according to Health News, would burn as much as 100 calories:
- Doing the dishes. Instead of just relaxing and catching up with your favorite noon-time TV drama, you should do it while washing the dishes. By doing this you enjoy the things you love, accomplish the household chores and stay fit all at the same time. In fact, spending an hour washing and drying a sink full of them would actually help burn 100 calories.
- Mow the lawn. Spending 20 minutes of your day manually mowing the lawn using a non-automatic lawn-mower provides enough exercise to burn 100 calories. This is because the activity not only involves walking but it also entails pushing something with significant weight and resistance enough to make you sweat.
- Vacuum the house. Well, not really the entire house but you can do this activity for 60 minutes in order to get rid of that extra 100 calories.
- Clean the bathroom. Believe it or not, scrubbing down the entire bathroom—that is, from floor to ceiling or vice versa—for 35 minutes is actually equal to 35 minutes-worth of walk on the treadmill? Not only is it efficient, but also effective. Not to mention you get to experience a squeaky clean bathroom again.
- Doing the laundry. Specifically, moving the fabrics, both light and heavy, from the washing machine to the dryer, folding them and organizing the entire closet for about 45 minutes would help burn some 100 calories.
Aside from these activities, you should also know that certain chores you do every day for a particular period or length of time have corresponding amounts of calories burned. Here is a chart of the most common chores we are talking about with their corresponding calorie-burning capacity as well as the muscles they work:
| Chore | Body Part it Works | Amount of Calorie Burned |
| Floor mopping | Biceps, shoulders | 112 calories if done for 30 minutes |
| Gardening | Back, legs, arms | 256 calories if done for 60 minutes |
| Painting | Core muscles, arms | 288 calories if done for 60 minutes |
| Cleaning gutters | Legs, arms, upper back, shoulders | 320 calories if done for 60 minutes |
| Carpet sweeping, sweeping floors | Arms, back, shoulders, legs, core | 156 calories if done for 60 minutes |
| Vacuuming | Biceps, shoulders | 112 calories if done for 30 minutes |
| Ironing | Biceps, shoulders | 88 calories if done for 60 minutes |
| Watering plants | Back, legs, arms | 102 calories if done for 60 minutes |
| Moving furniture and household items, carrying boxes | Back, legs, arms, biceps, shoulders, core | 340 calories if done for 60 minutes |
| Making the bed | Arms, shoulders, core | 69 calories if done for 60 minutes |
| Carrying small children | Arms, shoulders, biceps, core, legs, back | 136 calories if done for 60 minutes |
| Bathing dog | Arms, legs, back | 170 calories if done for 60 minutes |
Aside from these common household chores and activities, busy others can also do simple, inexpensive and hassle-free exercises such as walking and jogging both of which can easily be done around the house or within close proximity.
