So I was curious how to count housework towards my physical activity. The past couple days I have been cleaning like crazy because we are having company over the weekend. If I spent two hours between sweeping, mopping and vacuuming the floors, does that count as two hours of exercise or no?
Anything you do above sitting on the couch burns calories more than you would sitting on the couch. That includes any time you're standing, walking around, etc. But even though I burn more calories showering than I do sitting, I don't consider showering "exercise".
Cleaning is somewhere in the middle. My heartrate never gets so high that it compares to my cardio (and I've worn a heart rate monitor to check), but it's higher than when I'm in the shower. I personally don't count this time as cardio, nor do I count any other activity where I'm not at a cardio-level heart rate (which means that walking to the grocery store or riding my bike around town aren't cardio for me either).
Does it feel as hard as when you do cardio? Are you as sweaty, out of breath, tired as you are from a good workout? If not, I likely wouldn't count it.
I think of it this way: I plan what workouts I want to do. And then I try to take every opportunity (and make some too) to be more active in general - walking to work, tackling major housework, a weekend activity that involves walking all day, playing with kids instead of just sitting and visiting with the adults, dancing or hiking, some heavy lifting. I don't count it as exercise, but I find all that extra activity really helps.
So I'm "on plan" if I do my workouts, plus get in at least several instances of extra "activity," preferably some every day. My plan is not just to exercise, but to make my whole life more active.
I keep track of exercise and on the weekends when I clean I do get sweaty and so on- but I'll count two hours of hard cleaning as only half an hour of exercise
I've started planning my meals and my exercise more diligently. Along with my planned exercise, I also have planned activity. Activity includes housework and also includes things that mean more movement but aren't necessarily exercise. So I consider housework to be 'activity' but not exercise.
Sometimes I consider vacuuming an exercise because the old heavy vacuum I have weighs a ton, and I work up a sweat sometimes as much as a workout! If I've done housework all day from 8am to 3pm, vacuuming, washing floors, doing laundry which consists of hauling clothes down 2 flights of stairs and back up again, sometimes hanging clothes on the line... Yeah, on those days I don't feel guilty if I don't jog, bike or go to the gym.....
i'm at the start of my journey and so the heavier household tasks do get me up to my cardio level (worn the heart montior too!), but i dont count them as exercise. they are a bonus, but exercise to me is doing what i have planned, and like the others have said, the small efforts (gardening, walking to the shops, parking further away from my destination etc) to get moving during the day are all just bonus to me, particularly becuase as i lose weight and get fitter, these tasks wont get my heart rate up.
Housework for me is extra activity. I don't count it as exercise. For me, exercise (weight training, running, hiking, planned walking etc.) is what I plan to do and is separate from my day to day or weekly household chores.
Housework
