Mowing the Lawn burns 777 calories?

Yes it takes your weight into account when it calculates the calories burned. My weight was already loaded in. It told me I would burn 404 calories if I mowed the lawn for 60 minutes at my current weight. I played with the weight to see how much it changed. That number still sounds high to me though. It only gave me general or riding mower as an option.

Here's what I got from my activity monitor for mowing the lawn, 1112 kcal
Calories 1:47min average heart rate of 136 bpm 1.5 miles

It's generalised and likely way overestimating. You'd burn some calories if you're spending hours using a push mower up and down hills. Unless you've worn a heart rate monitor, I would bother logging it or eating back the calories but that's just my personal approach.

Personally id never count mowing the lawn as excercise. At the end of the day where does it stop? Washing the car? Hoovering? To me all of these things are taken into account by your base calorie figure. Counting these small acitivites seems a little bit like cheating.

Not trying to be rude. Just my 2p

shaunroberts wrote: »

Personally id never count mowing the lawn as excercise. At the end of the day where does it stop? Washing the car? Hoovering? To me all of these things are taken into account by your base calorie figure. Counting these small acitivites seems a little bit like cheating.

Not trying to be rude. Just my 2p

This is from the CDC web site

http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/adults/index.htm

Aerobic activity or "cardio" gets you breathing harder and your heart beating faster. From pushing a lawn mower, to taking a dance class, to biking to the store – all types of activities count. As long as you're doing them at a moderate or vigorous intensity for at least 10 minutes at a time.

Intensity is how hard your body is working during aerobic activity.

How do you know if you're doing light, moderate, or vigorous intensity aerobic activities?
For most people, light daily activities such as shopping, cooking, or doing the laundry doesn't count toward the guidelines. Why? Your body isn't working hard enough to get your heart rate up.

Moderate-intensity aerobic activity means you're working hard enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat. One way to tell is that you'll be able to talk, but not sing the words to your favorite song. Here are some examples of activities that require moderate effort:

Walking fast
Doing water aerobics
Riding a bike on level ground or with few hills
Playing doubles tennis
Pushing a lawn mower

Vigorous-intensity aerobic activity means you're breathing hard and fast, and your heart rate has gone up quite a bit. If you're working at this level, you won't be able to say more than a few words without pausing for a breath. Here are some examples of activities that require vigorous effort:

Jogging or running
Swimming laps
Riding a bike fast or on hills
Playing singles tennis
Playing basketball

You can do moderate- or vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, or a mix of the two each week. A rule of thumb is that 1 minute of vigorous-intensity activity is about the same as 2 minutes of moderate-intensity activity.

ScubaSteve1962 wrote: »

Moderate-intensity aerobic activity means you're working hard enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat. One way to tell is that you'll be able to talk, but not sing the words to your favorite song. Here are some examples of activities that require moderate effort:

Walking fast
Doing water aerobics
Riding a bike on level ground or with few hills
Playing doubles tennis
Pushing a lawn mower

Duuuuude, you should hear me belch out bad 90's pop through all of these activities!

esmesqualor wrote: »

My doc gave me a good tip: "intentional" exercise is the only thing to log. Not gardening, painting, walking the dog, vacuuming, etc... you get the idea. These are all "living life" activities and you always do them. I used to have that quandry because I am a landscaper. If I log my regular work activities it's a crazy number of calories. But I have been doing it for 25 years and my body does not consider it exercise.

Depends on how active you are, it would make a difference. But by your doctors standards, then a lot of us shouldn't count when we actually do go exercise, because we do it almost every day.

Washing the car?? Hmmm WAX ON WAX OFF (LOL)

Using a hand mower, it takes me over 14k steps and 3.5+ hours to get it done. With a tractor, I wouldn't count it, but I definitely count it when I do it by hand.