Gardening

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madpanda
madpanda Posts: 23
in Fitness and Exercise
When I added gardening to my exercise activities only one came up, but when I put in 120mins it comes up with a value of 450 calories, which seems really high to me.
Anyone got an idea of how many calories are used when gardening? Basically I cut the grass (4*2 m ), did some weeding and all in all it was about 2 hours.

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  • bbonney
    bbonney Posts: 18 Member
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    Mowing the lawn has it's own "workout" and you burn alot more calories then you think weeding and cutting grass so I say it's about right.
  • cpe80
    cpe80 Posts: 1
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    I would agree to, gardening burns loads of carlories and you will also find you use muscles you didn't know you had! :-)
  • SarzWix
    SarzWix Posts: 21 Member
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    I took a 24 hour free trial on another 'diet resource' website, and used it to find out calories used in lots of different activities. The ones that amazed me the most were the gardening ones. For instance, digging apparently burns 554 calories an hour!
  • SashaDawn75
    SashaDawn75 Posts: 7
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    I worked on my neighbours garden for 3 hours Friday, pulling weeds, grooming and mulching! It said about 1043 calories burned which i thought was high to but since I couldn't walk to 3 days after i assume its about right! :)
    I just didn't really eat all the extra calories it allotted me - !! (although I wanted to)

    JUST did - Wii Just Dance for an hour and it said 400+ calories burned, again seems high but I'm sweating so it can't be all bad!
  • becka63
    becka63 Posts: 712 Member
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    I think it also depends on your activity level set.

    I have an allotment, but because I'm not down there everyday and it's not part of my daily activity, I have put sedentary as my activity level and I log gardening as a separate activity, which according to MFP gives me a calorie burn of about 500Kcal / 120 min. I know (because I can feel it afterwards!) I am using muscles, particularly when I'm handweeding between tender veg, and my hamstrings and glutes feel in constant contraction, but that seemed a high burn to me.

    I went round this morning wearing my HRM and did 90 min work: general tidying, watering (using a can, not a hose), weeding a patch c.10mx5m and my burn read as 340cal, which did seem more reasonable imo.

    I think although MFP takes into account your activity level and the time you say you spend exercising per day when you select one of their activities, I'm not sure it takes into account that as you exercise more and more consistently and regularly, your fitness level increases and therefore you will start burning less calories.

    I say this because, before I started on MFP, I would have done 30 min of allotment work today and then come home! But my overall fitness has improved so much that I biked there and back, did the 90 min and then did some wii zumba.
  • madpanda
    madpanda Posts: 23
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    Thanks folks. I know what you mean about feeling it in the legs and that. The other night I was surprised that I carried on for 2 hours without much soreness in the muscles. When doing digging I find myself getting weak and light headed after 10-15mins work, which I am hoping getting fitter will improve that.

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