How many calories do you burn doing household chores?

For those reluctant to do their household chores, the knowledge you might burn a significant amount of calories might just be the motivation you need.

Boredom is more often than not associated with cleaning and DIY, however the vigorous exercise that goes into it is often forgotten. A jog or spin class is not the only way to burn calories and lose weight, after all.

The home improvement service Plentific rounded up how many calories you burn each hour from doing the following chores based on an adult’s weight of 150lbs (10.7 stone).

For light cleaning jobs like dusting or hanging up clothes, you can burn 171 calories in an hour. So if you add in some more strenuous cleaning methods like hovering, you can burn even more. The amount of calories burned cleaning are therefore equivalent to almost four jaffa cakes.

Brushing away the dust on the kitchen floor or leaves outside on the patio for one hour can result in 269 calories being burned, meaning just 30 minutes of sweeping will burn 135 calories – almost as much as a can of coke.

While re-organising the furniture in your home is often an arduous task, the benefits, in addition to rejuvenating the feng shui, are evident by burning 408 calories. Therefore, one hour of furniture moving is similar to playing 50 minutes of tennis.

While the weather might be too cold to venturing out into the garden just yet, when spring arrives putting on your gloves and getting your fingers green can burn you 339 calories. Similarly, pushing around a lawn mower for an hour burns 376 calories – more than two bottles of Stella Artois.

If a New Year’s resolution was to freshen up the home with some redecorating, you’ll be pleased to know it burns 306 calories. If this is a longer job, which it very often is, and takes four hours that is 1200 calories burned on painting walls- the same as two Big Macs.