Calories Burned While Sanding/Painting/Etc

sapphire1166

My husband and I bought a house that needs some major TLC, and before the general contractor starts work next week I've been cleaning, sanding, painting, etc. I spent 9 hours there on Saturday sanding cabinet frames, bleaching the inside of the cabinets, wiping everything down, and painting primer on. I never really got my heart rate up (I'm a slow turtle) so I didn't even think to consider putting any exercise in my diary, but on Sunday I woke up feeling like I got hit by a truck. I was so sore all over.

Did about 4 hours yesterday again, and planning on another 4 hours after work today. I was under the impression that you have to have an increased heart rate to burn calories, but I'm super sore so I figure I must have burned SOMETHING. Would I be safe to put 100 calories burned over the 4 hours I worked yesterday, and another 100 calories today? Think that would be wildly over or under?

Know a heart rate monitor would be the best bet and it's on my Christmas list.

jeffpettis

Muscle soreness does not equate to calorie burn. Your muscles are sore because you used them in a way that they are not accustomed to for an extended period of time. Having said that. You probably burned a few extra calories if this was something you don't normally do, but probably not enough to make any difference. If you didn't raise your heart rate and keep it there you didn't burn too many more calories than you normally would have.

CyberTone

​The name of an activity is not the important part; it is the metabolic equivalent of tasks (METs) that provides an estimate for Calories burned per minute, which are estimates for a general population and may differ for you as an individual based on your level of intensity. MFP generally uses the 2011 METs values - which are published values based on research to support those values - compiled in the Compendium of Physical Activities.

You could search for one of the following pre-loaded exercises and log a percentage of the number of minutes based on your level of intensity.

METs - Activity
2.5 - Mild stretching
2.5 - Cleaning, light, moderate effort
2.5 - Walking, 2.0 mph, slow pace
3.0 - Walking, 2.5 mph, leisurely pace
3.0 - Carpentry, general
3.3 - Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace
3.5 - Calisthenics, home, light/moderate effort
3.8 - Walking, 3.5 mph, brisk pace
4.0 - Raking lawn
6.2 - Shoveling snow

hill8570

If you have MFP set as "sedentary", I'd say that sort of work would be equivalent to a slow walk. If you actually were doing the activity for 9 hours straight through, that would be very, very roughly 1000 calories over and above your RMR. If you want to be really conservative, 500 calories over RMR.

Ready2Rock206

sapphire1166 wrote: »

Know a heart rate monitor would be the best bet and it's on my Christmas list.

A heart rate monitor wouldn't be at all accurate for this activity anyway. That's only for steady cardio with an elevated heart rate.

I think you'd probably be okay to have an extra 100 calories. Even with eating 100 extra you are probably still under maintenance for the week unless you have a very minimal deficit.