Cleaning the house is one of the most underrated calorie-burning activities you can do for mind and body in 2022! Not only will you be left with a sparkling clean home, but an hour of housework can burn around 200 calories; the equivalent of a 25 minute jog or a Snickers bar.
Housework not only burns calories, but it can have a two-fold positive effect on your mood. In a recent study, we found that 92% of respondents said they felt happier when their home was clean, additionally the physical effort of cleaning can also have a positive impact on mood thanks to the endorphins released.
While age, weight, and gender play a role, on average it’s possible to burn anywhere from 100-300 calories per hour doing housework. But this will also depend on the type of chore and vigour with which you do it.
Here's how many calories a person burns doing certain activities for 30 minutes:
Getting down on your hands and knees to give your floors a proper scrub rather than using a mop and bucket will add to the intensity of the activity, burning even more calories. This burns the same amount of calories as a brisk walk for the same amount of time!
Now this one depends on the tile area and cleanliness. If you are doing a little spray and wipe job, you’ll use less calories. But if you’re working up a sweat scrubbing your tiles, you can hit over 300 calories an hour.
Cleaning windows, particularly if it involves climbing up and down a ladder to reach higher bits, can raise your heartrate and also give you a pretty good full-body workout. Your core, arms and shoulders will feel the burn.
Cleaning out the kitchen cupboard may not work up too much of a sweat, but lifting dozens of tin cans or glass jars to clean your cupboard space can burn about 85 calories in 30 mins.
A deep clean of the oven involves lifting of wire racks in and out of the oven as well as some seriously vigorous scrubbing on the inside walls.
Removing scum from your tub with a bit of elbow grease can burn up to 100 calories, which is the same as 300 jumping jacks. Pow!
Purdy & Figg’s cleaning philosophy is rooted in using a little and often approach with gentle natural ingredients, rather than waiting for a problem to get so bad that it requires drastic attention with strong, harsh cleaning products. By adopting natural cleaning methods, like Purdy & Figg, you’ll likely need to put in a little more elbow grease, thus burning even more calories and releasing even more endorphins.
It gets better - specific activities can also provide additional strengthening and toning benefits. For example, scrubbing the shower is great for working arms, shoulders and core whilst dusting and ironing is good for biceps, triceps and forearms. Purdy & Figg’s new eco-concentrate multi surface cleaner, Counter Clean, can be used to tackle all daily household cleaning tasks - helping to cut down unnecessary plastic waste and free up some much-needed space in cleaning cupboards!
