How many calories burned for house cleaning

[Jasper1]

I clean houses 3 days a weeks.  It is quite a work out for sure.  I log over 10,000 steps in 4 hours of cleaning.  I was wondering how many calories would actually be burned from the cleaning alone, which IMO is way more taxing than the steps.

[WendyB · Accepted solution]

It is listed as an activity. So go to the Activities tab. Scroll down tyoe in House and it comes right up

[Colinm39]

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@Jasper1 wrote:

I clean houses 3 days a weeks.  It is quite a work out for sure.  I log over 10,000 steps in 4 hours of cleaning.  I was wondering how many calories would actually be burned from the cleaning alone, which IMO is way more taxing than the steps.

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@Jasper1When you log a cleaning activity it will overwrite the calories you have tracked. Here is an example. I use this method when I do General Gardening, not many steps but Perceived Effort is there.

[KitaBear]

I am happy you posted this, I cleaned my house for 6 hours today and managed over 7,000 steps and I was wondering if the fitbit was actually accurate because I didn't think I had taken that many steps! Even happier because I clean condo's in the season.

[SolangeE]

Hey @KitaBear, It is a great to clean your house because you are exercising as well. I recommend you to log it as a custom activity. So you can actually find out about how many calories you burn during the hole cleaning. This will give you a more accurate information because the tracker will not record extra steps since you move your hands a lot while this activity. To do this just go to your activity page, then at the bottom on the log section type in house and select create custom activity, like the image below shows.  

After this all you have to do is, enter how many calories you burn and the rest of the information. From now on, you will only need to choose this activity from your activity window.

Hope this helps, see you around buddy. 

[Cass2871]

Also there are a milliion calculators on the web which will factor in your age, weight and time you have done the listed cleaning and then will give you the amount of calories you have burnt.  It can be annoying writing down everything and timing what you do, but if I did not do that my fitbit would think I am horrible and do nothing.  And it does impact what you do as I lost 2 kilos this past week and put it down to my fitbit which I have only had a week and has made me want to move more.

[Dominique]

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@Cass2871 wrote:

It can be annoying writing down everything and timing what you do, but if I did not do that my fitbit would think I am horrible and do nothing.

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In my experience, being very active doing house cleaning (something that doesn’t happen very often to me!) may not earn you a lot of steps, but is definitely detected in terms of activity and calories burned by Fitbit. For that, I don’t have to log or time anything, all I have to do is wear my Fitbit. Or actually, Fitbits, since I’m currently wearing two (Surge + Charge 2).

If you compare two days, one during which you’re spending three hours cleaning the house and once during which you’re lying on your couch watching TV or reading a book during the same period, you should see a big difference in terms of active minutes and calories burned. You can use the hourly activity graphs for that.

If weight loss is your main target, then calories burned should be the main indicator you should be following, not steps. 

[Cass2871]

Thanks for that. I should of clarified that I only have the flex so it does
not pick up all my activity. I think I will buy the apple watch next only
so I can see how many calories I burn when I swim. I have a lot of weight
to lose but have noticed since getting my Flex my activity has jumped. I
can almost say it is addictive 😄. What I am having real issues with is
eating enough. I am forcing myself to eat to actuay be in my goal area as
always under.

[Dominique]

Your Flex should pick up your activity and take it into account for calories burned just like more advanced models. Even if it doesn’t have heart rate monitoring, it still "knows" whether you’re on the move or just sedentary.

[SolangeE]

Hello, @Cass2871! It is nice to see you. As our friend, @Dominique, said your Flex should pick up all your activity information during the day like distance, calories burned & sleep. You can have all control of your diet by logging the food you eat during the day and with the amount of exercise collected it will let you know how much you have left to eat. 

Let us know how it goes! 

[Cass2871]

Thank you for that. The reason i thought it was not picking up all my activity is because I live in a two story unit. We have 15 stairs and it never picks up how many flights I have walked up. My IPhone does but not my flex. 

[Dominique]

@Cass2871: you said you had a Flex. Floors are not supported in that particular model (it lacks the sensor – altimeter – necessary for the feature). What you’re seeing (never picks up flights you walked up) is therefore expected.