is hanging up laundry considered exercise?

No.

When the weather is nice I hang my clothes to dry. This is not exercise. You may feel your heart beating but are you breaking a continuous sweat? No.

What I've tried to do, particularly over the weekend where I don't want to exercise, is just mildly up my activity level.

In the past, I have spent Saturday and Sunday parked on my backside hardly moving, but this weekend, I made an effort to do extra bits of chores I wouldn't normally have done at a weekend.

I don't log this as exercise- I just think that a little extra activity keeps me ticking over. I only count cleaning as exercise when I do a big session.

Short answer - yes. Doing anything active is a form of exercise, and you are entitled to log it and eat it...

BUT - Unless you are talking about very heavy laundry or a very long walk to get to the line, its not going to be that many calories. I would consider this task to be closer to weight lifting than cardio work, and a gym session of dedicated weight lifting burns somethign like 200KCal per hour. So if you are hanging up washing for 15 minutes and you are working at a lower effort than dedicated wight lifting you are talking less than 50 KCals - probably 20 or 30.

Don't let that put you off though - Strength training is really good for you - building muscle strength will actually increase the amount of calories your burn doing nothing (because muscle requires fuel to maintain itself), will help your posture and will make you look more toned. Furthermore you could use the opportunity to do some really good strength work. Instead of bending down to pick up the laundry items, go down into a full squat - its better or your back to lift from your legs anyway. If you can, do one+ squat without the item then do one where you pick it up. Holding your arms out straight in front of you rather than bending them will build up tone in your arms and shoulders. If you want to burn more calories, jog on the spot during the whole thing (but personally I think this would be quite tricky!)

No - think of it this way - were you hanging up laundry or cleaning while you were stacking on the weight - if you were it did not stop you from getting fat - so how on earth are those same activities now helping you drop the weight?

^^smart post.

No - think of it this way - were you hanging up laundry or cleaning while you were stacking on the weight - if you were it did not stop you from getting fat - so how on earth are those same activities now helping you drop the weight?

^^smart post.

I'm with these two.

I live in america, but we have a clothesline in our basement to hang dry stuff that can't go in the dryer.

Do I count that? Hell no.. it burns maybe 3 calories if that.

Everyone saying it counts as exercise, you are right BUT ONLY if you have activity level set to sedentary, otherwise what do you think 'lightly active' means? That includes every day tasks such as cleaning, the school run, hanging washing out etc.

OP, simple answer:

If you are set as sedentary, count it.
If you are set as lightly active, don't.

If there is one thing that these kinds of threads always prove, it's that people have no idea what "sedentary" actually means in an activity level. Sedentary does NOT mean that you never move. It does not mean that you don't go check the mailbox. It does not mean that you don't cook dinner. It does not mean that you don't do laundry or clean your house. What sedentary means is that for your day job, you spend the majority of it seated at a desk. Your BMR is the number that tells you your calorie burn if you never moved, and if you really wanted to log every little move you make throughout the day, then you would start with your BMR, not with a "sedentary" TDEE.

It is if you put the washing basket as far from the washing line as possible & hang one item up at a time per trip. Takes me about an hour to hang the washing. I then take it down the same way. With my fitbit I can get about 5-6 thousand steps just doing it each time..... enough that I do work up a sweat cause I'm going so fast. I just had to hang my stuff up inside cause it's raining.... washing at one end of the house...clotheshorse at the other...ONE item at a time. Took me 4000 steps to do half, I'm talking ONE sock, ONE underwear, ONE tshirt, ONE pair of pants..... per trip. So grab ONE...walk to line....hang...walk back empty handed....grab one...walk to line..... you get it now?


ANYTHING can be classed as exercise if you do it right..... you should see me clean the floors.


DO NOT LISTEN to those people who do NOT class it as exercise...... if you do it like I do then it's a bloody workout in itself. I didn't hang washing like that when I was fat.

Ugh, this is so ridiculous. You're not getting a workout because you're hanging laundry. You're getting a workout by walking, while you are hanging laundry. I can put a load of clothes in the washer, do several sets of back squats, deadlifts, and bench presses while the washer runs, and then change the clothes over to my dryer, and go back to lifting, then bring the laundry upstairs. Did I get such a great workout from doing laundry? Hell no, I got a great workout because I exercised while I was doing laundry. Two separate activities, that I happened to do at the same time.

I'm seriously jealous that you're in South Africa...

Short answer - yes. Doing anything active is a form of exercise, and you are entitled to log it and eat it...

BUT - Unless you are talking about very heavy laundry or a very long walk to get to the line, its not going to be that many calories. I would consider this task to be closer to weight lifting than cardio work, and a gym session of dedicated weight lifting burns somethign like 200KCal per hour. So if you are hanging up washing for 15 minutes and you are working at a lower effort than dedicated wight lifting you are talking less than 50 KCals - probably 20 or 30.

Probably the right way to look at it. Unless you are hanging a ridiculous amount of heavy clothes, doing laundry is only going to burn 20-30 calories. If you want to log it....fine. If you don't, same thing. It isn't a big picture item worth stressing about either way. For those that say don't eat back your exercise calories.....you're wrong. As long as you are eating a reasonable amount of food, it doesn't matter if you don't eat back your exercise calories, but the science (which works for the vast majority of people) says that you should be looking at net calories each day.

I completely agree - I log my cleaning as I do 2 major cleans a week for at least an hour!! Don't listen to all the negative people. I understand not putting in 5 steps walking to the washing line etc but at the end of the day its your diary and your weight loss mission.

You will know if you are cheating yourself by putting things like that in. Furthermore, if you put it in and lose weight then keep track of it. Any calorie burnt is a calorie burnt!

The most frustrating part of exercising.. a mile run burns about 130 calories which I could eat in about 2 seconds! Sigh!