Does Gardening Count as Exercise?
pearso21123
Posts: 351 Member
I looked up what counts as "sedentary" versus "lightly active" and gardening was on the list of daily activities that counted as sedentary (found here: http://antranik.org/proper-activity-level-for-calorie-intake/). But, MFP has gardening listed under cardio when adding exercise. So, is gardening actually considered exercise or just an activity of daily living? Am I double dipping if I add it as exercise? I've been skipping formal workouts the last week or so as I try to get my garden in. I've been spending about 1 - 2 hours a day in the garden before I have to leave for work. Thoughts?
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Well, depends. Deadheading flowers would be light activity. Double digging flower beds would certainly get my heart rate up. Judge by heart rate/sweating ect.0
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I wear my pedometer when I garden and it does count my steps so I just count that in my walking if that's of any use.0
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I don't count it as exercise. I think I enjoy it too much for it to be exercise, and definitely not cardio! lol0
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I have been logging it as exercise, but I rarely eat any of those calories back. Maybe 100. I have been hauling a lot of sand and topsoil, putti g in landscape edging, and digging holes by hand in compacted clay and planting bushes and trees.
If I were just weeding and pruning, planting veggies, I probably wouldn't bother.
Regardless, any movment is good.
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If you're deadlifting a 5 gallon weed out of the ground, then yes.0
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I agree, gardening is such a broad term. Sometimes I spend hours of heavy labor in the yard getting the beds ready and more so harvesting in fall and I definitely would consider that a good workout. If I'm just lightly weeding, watering or seeding...no that's just daily activity. I would say use your bet judgement on what it feels like to you and what the specific activity is.0
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It depends on what you are doing. I probably wouldn't count some light weeding but if you are moving rocks, heavy bags of soil, digging, etc for 30+ minutes then I would say to go ahead and log it if you want.0
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I don't count it as exercise. I think I enjoy it too much for it to be exercise, and definitely not cardio! lol
I enjoy it, too, that's why I want it to count as exercise
. I'd much rather be gardening than jogging.
Okay, more like walking with a smattering of jogging thrown in. I'm still improving.0 -
Laurend224 wrote: »I have been logging it as exercise, but I rarely eat any of those calories back. Maybe 100. I have been hauling a lot of sand and topsoil, putti g in landscape edging, and digging holes by hand in compacted clay and planting bushes and trees.
If I were just weeding and pruning, planting veggies, I probably wouldn't bother.
Regardless, any movment is good.
I don't eat back my calories, either, but if it doesn't count then that means I haven't been getting any actual exercise
. Our garden is probably about a half acre. I've been building beds for potatoes, digging and transplanting perennials to new locations, mulching, seeding. Water is carried in buckets because we don't have a hose that reaches that far. I'm putting in cold-weather plants right now. Over the next few weeks all of the warm-weather plants have to go in. I just don't have time to go walking with all of the work that still needs to be done in the garden. But maybe I better try to get some walking in, too. I just hate to take the time since I'm so busy right now. 0 -
Got to define gardening.
I would only include it if I was doing it for several hours and got a bit sweaty.
For me gardening is more chopping down/up trees. Pulling apart raised garden beds and spreading the dirt. Things that get you sweaty dirty and maybe some blisters on my delicate accountant hands.
For others gardening might be a slow walk around with a hose, pulling the odd weed.0 -
Got to define
]For others gardening might be a slow walk around with a hose, pulling the odd weed.
Yep, that's about the extent of my gardening! Sometimes I might sit down and plant a few flowers, which might take me all of 10 minutes.
Logging gardening is just too random a thing. Because it's different for everyone.
Not like timed running or walking etc
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My friend walks two blocks to work from the train and is sweating...when it's like 55 degrees out. I really doubt her heart rate was up.0 -
Sweat is just a cooling mechanism. So you can't accurately predict how many calories you burn based on how much you sweat. There are too many factors: How hydrated you are, the temperature outside, the humidity outside, your body temperature, etc.
Monitoring your heart rate would be a more reliable prediction on how many calories you're burning because it's proportional to how hard you're working (if you leave stress out of the equation), so I don't think that's too bad of an idea.0 -
I wondered that, too. Though today it hit 80 (I'm in Michigan) and I was sweating just being outside, so the whole sweating part isn't really a good way to judge. Gardening to me feels more like a weight workout than cardio. Definitely not a leisurely stroll. Lots of digging, shoveling mulch, building raised beds, carrying buckets of water. Definitely dirty and I already have blisters (and poison ivy). I thought I was pulling out baby stinging nettle but now I think it was actually baby poison ivy. I don't bother with gloves- can't get close enough to the dirt that way.
I don't have to chop down trees, that's my husband's job (we heat with wood). 0 -
Why not? Seems sweat and exercise have a relationship. Same for heart rate.arditarose wrote: »
My friend walks two blocks to work from the train and is sweating...when it's like 55 degrees out. I really doubt her heart rate was up.
55 hot or cold . Yeah of course there are limits. If your doing light gardening on a hot day your going to sweat from the heat.
But if you know your sweating from the activity of gardening then it seems a valid gauge.
I wasn't saying sweat was the best method. But it's better than nothing isn't it? If you not breaking a sweat you probably shouldn't include gardening as exercise.
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There are 5 populations over the world that are known for their longevity. One of the contributors is their activity level, but these people do not to formal exercise/workouts as we define them. Instead they garden - that is, they grown much of their own food and the workout they get from gardening is quite rigorous, resulting in a high level of physical fitness.
You can read about them here: http://www.bluezones.com. Especially the population from Okinawa who are generally living to over 100, but not just existing. These people are lively, engaged, physically fit and disease-free.0 -
47Jacqueline wrote: »There are 5 populations over the world that are known for their longevity. One of the contributors is their activity level, but these people do not to formal exercise/workouts as we define them. Instead they garden - that is, they grown much of their own food and the workout they get from gardening is quite rigorous, resulting in a high level of physical fitness.
You can read about them here: http://www.bluezones.com. Especially the population from Okinawa who are generally living to over 100, but not just existing. These people are lively, engaged, physically fit and disease-free.
It sounds interesting, but the site seems mostly to be promoting the book. I definitely feel a lot healthier in the summer when I'm eating lots of produce from the garden. There's nothing like a dinner made entirely of foods you grew or raised yourself. The family doesn't complain even when there's no meat, and we're not vegetarian. We raise our own broilers (meat chickens for you non-ag people), turkeys, and pork.
Here's a photo of a partial day's harvest last year:
A lot of people might find gardening boring, but I love it.
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That is so beautiful, OP! Man. I'm such a city girl. I would love to grow my own food though.0
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arditarose wrote: »That is so beautiful, OP! Man. I'm such a city girl. I would love to grow my own food though.
Thanks. You can grow your own food even in the city, unless you live in an apartment. It really doesn't take much space to grow just a few plants. My sister has a double lot in town and she has a beautiful garden. She has a degree in horticulture and it shows. Here's a photo of her garden. Hers is much nicer looking than mine. She says all of her neighbors can see it so she has to keep it looking good, unlike ours where nobody can see it unless they come all the way up our driveway. She grows enough in her small space to share with all of her neighbors and cans for her family and our family.
This was in early spring so the plants are all still small.
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Oh...I live in a small apartment on an industrial street, under an expressway. So...I can dream for now 0
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arditarose wrote: »Oh...I live in a small apartment on an industrial street, under an expressway. So...I can dream for now
Do you have any kind or yard or a patio? If you have a patio you should look into container gardening. There are certain varieties of vegetables that are specifically bred to be raised in containers. Don't give up the dream!
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pearso21123 wrote: »arditarose wrote: »Oh...I live in a small apartment on an industrial street, under an expressway. So...I can dream for now
Do you have any kind or yard or a patio? If you have a patio you should look into container gardening. There are certain varieties of vegetables that are specifically bred to be raised in containers. Don't give up the dream!
Yeah, I've heard of that. My patio is open to the sidewalk so someone would definitely steal my food or pee on it.0 -
[/quote]
Yeah, I've heard of that. My patio is open to the sidewalk so someone would definitely steal my food or pee on it.[/quote]
Ugh. City life sucks- this coming from a country girl. Of course, if you want any kind of excitement you have to go to the city. 0 -
pearso21123 wrote: »
Yeah, I've heard of that. My patio is open to the sidewalk so someone would definitely steal my food or pee on it.[/quote]
Ugh. City life sucks- this coming from a country girl. Of course, if you want any kind of excitement you have to go to the city. [/quote]
Haha! I love the city. So many fun things to do, food to eat, people to meet, places to explore. The country is cool too. Just not for me at the moment.0 -
arditarose wrote: »pearso21123 wrote: »
Yeah, I've heard of that. My patio is open to the sidewalk so someone would definitely steal my food or pee on it.
Ugh. City life sucks- this coming from a country girl. Of course, if you want any kind of excitement you have to go to the city. [/quote]
Haha! I love the city. So many fun things to do, food to eat, people to meet, places to explore. The country is cool too. Just not for me at the moment.[/quote]
I like them both for different reasons, but I don't think I could handle city life for the long run. I do sometimes wish for sidewalks and pavement for bike riding, and being able to go for walks along different routes, not just around a square mile. And I wish I could walk or bike to work, instead of commuting. Life is about compromise, I guess, and deciding what you can live with.0 -
I don't record it because I don't know how, but "gardening" for me is using a caliche bar (30 lbs) repeatedly striking the ground to break up caliche (like hardpan and it feels as hard as concrete to me) to dig holes to plant trees. Usually it takes a week or two of working at it daily to dig a hole big enough to plant a tree. I also am moving tons of pebbles and rearranging pavers. I am getting noticable muscles from "gardening" and I work at it hard enough that I am panting and hard enough that I'm sore the next few days from all the labor. So I think of it as exercise but I don't record it.0
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pearso21123 wrote: »
Ugh. City life sucks- this coming from a country girl. Of course, if you want any kind of excitement you have to go to the city.
You need a community garden plot!
I don't count gardening if I am just going out to do some quick watering. However, most of the time I am lifting, digging and walking back and forth with wheelbarrows full of dirt or compost. I have my own plot, I am building a communal pumpkin patch, digging a new plot for a shared flower garden and I just designed and am planting a raised system of nibbling beds. I do the composting for 22 families year-round--it is certainly real exercise.0
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