Gardening should be considered good exercise.

wildredbill

I love gardening. Weeding, bending,hoeing, planting, tilling, digging, and going walking back to the house for more ice tea on a hot day, are all good.

Trouble is, I don't see a way to record it. Any ideas, gardeners?

Rocknut53

Gardening is in the exercise data base. I think the calorie burn is over estimated so I don't eat many of those calories back.

SezxyStef

I use an app on my phone to log it. Mapmyfitness...it also has yard work...

I don't always eat those calories back as they are exceptionally high but yes it's good exercise...

French_Peasant

You can also add your own personal exercise to the database. Here is a Harvard calorie burn chart that I use, for 3 different weights. It has several gardening activities included. I agree, be careful of eating back every single calorie as it can be very difficult to accurately estimate the burn with so many varied activities (although in some cases eating back can be challenging if you are like me and put in some 7-8 hour gardening days....that much food would not fit in my stomach).

http://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities

zyxst

I use the ShapeSense calculators. It also has a Gross/Net calories calculator for figuring out what you would burn with/without your BMR added in. Gardening is listed under Activity Based calculator, just input your stats and select what you're doing.

besaro

it is activity, but its not really cardio. Even when i mow (push power FTW!) i don't even count that.

French_Peasant

besaro wrote: »

it is activity, but its not really cardio. Even when i mow (push power FTW!) i don't even count that.

A good chunk of walking at 3.0 mph is my bottom limit to what I log as cardio, although it is probably more precise to think of it as fat burn as it's not going to get the heart to 120. @zyxst 's calculator gives someone my size (145 lbs) 159 calories for a half hour of power push mowing. Heck yeah I would log that!

SezxyStef

I have an activity tracker so I use that to track really. I do use my phone and mapmyfitness as well to see the "burn"

SuperCarLori

I only log half the time I spent gardening, and easy only a portion of the calories back. I do this with any of my activity, just to give myself a buffer. If I'm just plucking weeds, I don't log it. Same with housework...unless it's my weekly down and dirty, I don't log it, and when I do, it's only half actual time.

I'm stubborn and old school, I'm not buying into a gadget for exercise. Just exercise.