How Many Calories Do You Burn Doing Housework

Walking, sitting, reading a book, washing windows, sleeping… these are all calorie burning activities. More precisely, everything you do, but literally everything – burns calories. The main factor in losing or gaining weight is the ratio between calories consumed and burned.

As we are all forced to spend as much time in our own home as possible due to the circumstances, many of us are afraid of gaining weight. Of course, it would be good to reduce the calorie intake a bit, but you still have to take care not to overdo it because even the activities we do indoors burn calories.

What are calories?

Calorie is a unit of energy. One calorie is the amount of energy needed to heat 1 gram of water by one degree Celsius. Food is fuel for the body and the body needs calories for all functions, from the bloodstream, brain function and all physical activities. This amount of energy that the body burns (by itself) in a state of complete rest is called basal metabolism and it amounts to about 60% of all calories we consume in a day.

Daily calorie requirement

The average adult needs between 1100 and 1500 calories a day to perform vital functions (basal metabolism). If you are doing some additional work you will need an average of 400-600 additional calories per day. Of course, these are average values, and each individual should consult a nutritionist for individual consultation related to his body weight, metabolism and body composition.

Sitting

According to research, sitting burns 75 calories per hour. If you sit and read a book, it rises to 112 for a man weighing 85 kg. At the same time, a 68 kg woman will burn 96 calories in an hour of sitting and reading a book.

Walking inside the apartment

In one hour of walking inside the apartment, a 85 kg man will burn 172 calories, and a 68 kg woman will burn 148 calories at the same time. If you walk up the stairs, an 85 kg man will burn 259 calories in 60 minutes, and a 68 kg woman will burn 222 calories.

See below how many calories you can burn by doing some housework for a woman weighing 68 kg and a man weighing 85 kg in 1 hour:

Activity	Woman 68 kg	Man 85 kg
Dishwashing	88 kcal	111 kcal
Cooking	68 kcal	85 kcal
Food preparation and serving	102 kcal	128 kcal
Ironing	88 kcal	111 kcal
Making the bed	68 kcal	85 kcal
Watering the plants	102 kcal	128 kcal