Gardening as exercise

Some gardening really does take a lot of work, especially if you're squatting down and getting up over and over. If I garden (which I love too!) then I go with the MFP number. If just walking a moderate pace is supposed to be about 300 calories, then I bet gardening is, too.

There is a tool on WebMD that calculates how many calories you burned according to your weight, length and type of activity. I am in the process of helping to clear trees, so I spend about 6-10 hours per week picking up branches, stacking logs and dragging various parts of trees that we can't get to with machinery. If that's not exercise, I don't know what is! Any time you are exerting energy, you should be able to log it (within reason)- gardening is not easy work!

I typically remove about 100/hour off any exercise I input (my body would have burned that anyway and it's already calculated for). 300 sounds about right for constant movement, so the key is to figure out what the time you spent actually moving was. Weeding and watering is low exertion while raking and digging are higher. The count on here, from what i can tell is moderate....like moderate walking, like someone says....

If you want to get technical, You don't need a HRM. I take my HR about every 15 minutes and just note it down (only have to do it once). Once you're done just find the average HR over the course of the time and find an HR calculator on here. It shoudl approximate the calories burned for your body and then you'll be able to use that measurement per hour going forward for the season.

I was just out there myself. The ground is now thawed....so no more walking for a while....there are a few interesting things happening out there though....LOL like bulbs growing where I planted none (I put about $80 out there last fall and so far where I planted them there is NOTHING!!!)

I don't want to over post - I'm sure I didn't burn 900 calories in 3 hours...I'm thinking of reporting 1 hour for the 3 at the rate MFP assigns.
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I don't have any stats yet, we just got rid of our snow finally! But, I'll be wearing my HRM this summer when I'm out there. For you though, I think I like your idea of just logging part of it, whatever you would feel apprpriate. 300 per hour does seem kind of high for what you described, and I'm more inclined to underestimate exercise and overestimate food, just to help myself stay within my budget.

Good luck and enjoy your garden!

Thanks everyone. I'm relatively new to this site and definately new to counting calories consumed and burned. While I'm a recovering perfectionist, I still like to learn what other people have done and the theory behind it so I can make sound decisions based on input.

For now, I'm leaving the ~300 calories for 1 hour as I would rather under-estimate my excersise than over estimate it. Eventually I will get a HRM and be able to log it more acurately.

BTW here is a photo of my garden after todays work :happy: . I've always been an avid home grower and am glad to connect with others with the same passion. Right now I'm growing spinach, snap peas, leeks, radishes, lettuces, a variety of flowers and beets. Just planted cucumbers, more radishes, snow peas and more lettuce. Tomatoes and beans will go in next.

img src="<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=288p8v8&quot; target="_blank"><img src="http://i55.tinypic.com/288p8v8.jpg&quot; border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>"

:bigsmile: Your garden looks lovely. My family and i like to grow veggies and stuff. At the moment the garden kinda looks like a bomb site because of the rain we've been having lately.:grumble: Our plants arent as far on as yours though i bet that you live somewhere a bit warmer than the north of england :bigsmile:

I count every calorie MFP gives me for gardening. I am exhausted afterward and my muscles are always sore the next day.