Gardening

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MaddMaestro
MaddMaestro Posts: 405 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
What are they expecting with Gardening as an exercise? I imagine gardening as pruning flowers and picking weeds. Over the last..I dunno 2 months including yesterday and today, I've been lugging bags of soil and crates, digging holes and painting.. So, I don't know about putting in "Gardening" as an exercise.. that would be more like landscaping..?

Anyway, what calories am I ACTUALLY burning with my yard project(s)?

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  • rachel780mpg
    rachel780mpg Posts: 83 Member
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    Since the calorie burns MFP gives are estimates, if I was only pruning flowers and picking weeds, I would only eat back maybe 25% of my calories. The type of work you are describing, I would eat back closer to 75% of what MFP says.
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    I would say what you're doing is what they consider gardening. Picking weeds? That isn't such a calorie burner that I would log it.
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
    edited June 2018
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    I don’t log gardening or yard work or mowing the lawn etc. I consider it just part of my day. Although mowing the yard does burn a lot of calories especially if you have a push mower lol
  • tulips_and_tea
    tulips_and_tea Posts: 5,711 Member
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    "Picking" weeds doesn't burn much if they are small and easy to pull. However, I've spent the past several days hacking down weeds using large, heavy pruning shears and hauling them to a dumpster. That is a lot of work!

    In other words, it all depends on your personal energy expenditure but calorie burns are all just an estimate anyway. I don't even try to track mine.
  • FL_Hiker
    FL_Hiker Posts: 919 Member
    edited June 2018
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    Jeez gardening is probably the most intense workout and I was a competitive swimmer ! Im always super sore after doing yard work... it involves getting on the roof, brushing off debris, bagging about 10 bags full of debris off the ground, carrying said bags around the house to the curb, weed wack the asiatic jasmine, leaf blow all the pathways, weed, etc!!! It's exhausting!! And I'm usually sore for a week after... we have a very big garden and I don't regret it for a minute
  • DomesticKat
    DomesticKat Posts: 565 Member
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    I don't log gardening and landscaping but I do a lot of it during the spring and summer. I can rack up 15-20,000 steps easily since I have a huge yard, so I just eat the extra calories that MFP gives me from my Fitbit. I also have my account set to active so it all seems to work out fine.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    There's an entry for mowing and I use it when using a walk-behind. Not so much for using the rider. :p
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,368 Member
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    Database entries like the gardening one aren't very useful. If I had to rely on the database only, I'd probably log something like light-duty pruning & weeding with calories similar to what it would give you for yoga or slow walking. Heavier work like digging beds might be closer to higher-MET exercises. Honestly, logging stuff like this is a cr*pshoot (don't know whether MFP would've *kitten*ed that without the asterisk ;) ). Even a heart rate monitor or fitness device isn't likely to give you a great estimate.

    I understand wanting to log it if it's something that's not in your routine activities, and you do a long stint, because it's obviously material calories.

    If you're an experienced exerciser, I'd suggest looking at the calories the database would give you for a similar-intensity/similar-motion kind of exercise, and spitball it from there. That's kind of how I got to yoga as a lowball-ish thing for pruning - standing in one spot, bending and stretching, then moving to another spot, repeat. It's wrong, but there is no right. If you're somewhere in the ballpark, and you don't do it routinely, it'll be close enough.

    (BTW: You can change the calories on any exercise when you log it.)
  • nooshi713
    nooshi713 Posts: 4,877 Member
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    When I garden, I lug heavy bags of soil, squat, dig, and do a lot of walking back and forth from my planters to my green bin and shed. I'm not sure how many calories this really burns. It would be nice to know.
  • MaddMaestro
    MaddMaestro Posts: 405 Member
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    Thanks for the input, guys! I just won't log it and keep mindful to my calorie intake
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,368 Member
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    MaddMaestro wrote: »
    Thanks for the input, guys! I just won't log it and keep mindful to my calorie intake

    If you do a lot of it, watch your weight loss rate and adjust calorie intake if needed to keep your actual weight loss rate at a sensible, moderate, healthy level. That's the important thing.

    Too fast weight loss => fatigue and weakness => reduced activity so eventually unnecessarily slowed weight loss, ill health. Just be sure you stay in the sweet spot where you have moderate weight loss, and plenty of strength, energy and health longer-term. Too-fast loss is the early warning system.

    Best wishes!

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