Thursday, January 13, 2011

Why is there no housework listed for exercising on fitness sites?

I just spent 2.5 hours doing a whirlwind cleaning of my house (as someone was coming to assess the value for our community association as we've changed a lot since it was last assessed). So, of course, not doing any cleaning for a week, things were cluttered and dusty. I first tidied our bedroom, Henry's bedroom and Adrian's bedroom. I went downstairs and spent on hour on the kitchen and living/dining area - putting away holiday dishes, unloading and loading the dishwasher, wiping down all the counters, cleaning the 5 burner gas stove and grates, the sink, etc. Then I went to the dining/living area and picked up the toys and books and put those all way, cleaned the table and place mats and swept the kitchen and dining/living area. Went to the mud room and organized and tidied. Went to the basement bringing some holiday stuff downstairs, cleaned the litter boxes and then headed up to the family room. Put away all of the toys (to henry's room) gathered all the recycling from the Orthodox christmas and Christmas (we had saved boxes until we were sure everything was OK/not broken), tidied up the music stuff, and was just about done when the bell rang. Covered in sweat, I then showed the guy through the house - which is still not very tidy, btw. I was way more tired and sweaty than I am when I'm walking to Walk It Out and it wasn't an hour, but TWO hours of nonstop, really, nonstop cleaning. I can't even think about cleaning the bathrooms today - NO WAY.

So, why on my fitness log does it have exercise for playing billiards, bob sledding, broom ball, croquet, curling, darts, hacky sack, hang gliding, horse shoe pitching, juggling, lawn bowling, luge, motocross, sailing, scuba diving, shuffleboard, ski jumping, snow mobiling, sky diving, tobogganing, and wallyball, but nothing for cleaning the house? I'm pretty sure I'm exercising more than I would be if I was playing horse shoes. If I cleaned like this every day, I would be a skinny gal. Too bad I hate cleaning!

So, I sit here and think, well, how should I categorize it? Jazzercise? Or Skateboarding? or Walking? If I put in walking for 2.5 hours, it says I burned 1000 calories, really? No, I would probably feel more burn/nerve ticking in my legs if I walked for 2.5 hours. Let's see, Hacky Sack? No, that's 1134 calories. Wow, 2.5 hours of sledding is 2000 calories. Let's check horseshoe pitching. I guess I'll call housework, Horseshoe pitching as that's 857 calories and starts with an H. too and that feels about right. Wow! That's a lot of calories, no wonder I'm exhausted! I'll have to pitch horseshoes more often!

ETA: Well, I am beginning to use an app on my iphone and general cleaning, like sweeping, dusting, mopping, wiping counters for 2.5 hours is 1043 calories for me. Light cleaning of dusting, changing linen, vacuuming is 743 calories for me. So I guess, it's somewhere in that ballpark? I like to err on the side of caution, so I guess on my online log I'll stick with horseshoe pitching and call it light cleaning on my phone app.

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