We all know that working out is the most effective way to lose weight and improve overall health. However, people are usually not into exercising mainly due to their hectic household routines.

If you too share the same queue with them, you don’t need to feel guilty about not going for any HIIT workout or being above average to run for 5 miles daily. You can burn your calories by just keeping your house clean and tidy. Plus, you can grab flexibility, strength, and stability by doing your routine household chores.

Here are 7 household chores that you need to do yourself instead of expecting someone else to do it for you:

Sweeping & Mopping

If you want to burn calories and be productive at the same time, try sweeping your hard house floor followed by mopping. You would be surprised that doing sweeping and mopping for 60 minutes can burn almost 240 calories.

Related Reading: Why Do We Get Belly Fat? Reasons and Solutions

However, the real mopping technique is a bit tiresome. It demands you to squat and crawl while mopping the floor. This technique will benefit your legs and is a very good arm workout. Thirty minutes of mopping and sweeping can burn around 90-150 calories, depending on your weight and the intensity of your activity.

Gardening

The benefits of gardening go beyond getting more fruits and vegetables. It also works as a fitness powerhouse that can help you burn up to 350 calories in just one hour of gardening and yard work. Doing gardening in your lawn, digging soil, mixing compost, and watering the plant, all require you to use both your upper and lower body.

According to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, both male and female communities of gardeners have considerably lower body mass index (BMI), as compared to their neighbors who are not into gardening.

Related Reading: Why You're Not Losing Belly Fat and How You Can Change It

Preparing Meals

Cooking a home-made delicious meal is a healthy activity, and so is its prep and clean-up. Setting the table, chopping fruits, and vegetables, scrubbing pots, and doing the dishes are all ways to stay active and burn some calories.

Standing and washing dishes by hand can burn you from 185 to 200 calories in just 30 minutes. However, you need to stand and do all the chopping work with your hands while putting aside the machines.

Doing the Laundry

Every single cycle of laundry that you do in your fully automatic washing machine is actually a missed chance of burning up to 150 calories. This activity can also help build bigger arms and get in a good amount of chest workouts while giving your body a nice muscle tone.

Instead of doing laundry in the washing machine, try to do some laundry by hand every week. Washing clothes, rubbing them for almost 15-20 minutes by hand, then drying them, folding them, and then lifting and ironing them requires a lot of energy, and this activity can burn up to 700 calories in a month.

Scrubbing the Bathroom

Scrubbing your bathroom tub, sinks, showers and tiles is one particular workout that is great for your arms. Scrubbing one bathtub by hand for about 15 minutes can burn up to 90 calories.

To make this activity more intense, cover all the bases completely, and then scrub the shower and bathtub, polish faucets and mirrors, wet-vac floors, and then wipe out all hard surfaces.

Painting & Redecoration

If you have been postponing your home painting and redecoration, it’s time for you to do this and burn some calories. Typical remodeling and or painting an average-sized room can burn up to 270 calories.

Painting is an activity that requires rotational movements, squatting, overhead pressing, and even stretching all in one. However, never forget to use a stable ladder because falling off a ladder can cause serious injuries.

Related Reading: Fun Hobbies That Can Be Healthy for Your Well-Being

Wash your Car

Do you know that car washing is a full-blown cardio workout and it offers amazing results for your arms? Car washing involves your arms, legs, core, and even abdominal muscles. Try washing your car by hand every week.

This amazing activity can surely give strength to the stabilizing muscles in your shoulders. Do not wash your car in one direction, instead use rotational movement clockwise or counter clockwise.

Takeaway

To stay fit and lose weight, it might not be necessary to join gyms and bear heavy fees. You can achieve your fitness goals by coping with your day-to-day household chores.  Get done with your household chores, burn calories, reduce fat, and stay fit all the time.