You can comply with the exercise and diet recommendations offered by numerous health-related organizations and still gain weight if you have a sedentary lifestyle for most of each day. Moving when you're not formally exercising can be a more effective way of burning calories than formally exercising. In fact, many weight-loss studies have figured out how many calories you burn while doing numerous everyday and occupational activities, including painting a house.
Explanation
You lose weight whenever you're not eating. Calories are a measurement of energy that are needed for survival. The average woman needs to eat about 1,100 calories daily to ensure that her heart, lungs and other internal organs function well, according to the textbook "Essentials for Health and Wellness." The average man needs about 1,300 calories daily. Larger people need more calories than smaller people. Your heart causes you to burn calories because it needs oxygen and "oxygen is a critical component of the calorie-burning process," reports "The Complete Guide to Walking." Sleeping burns 46 calories per hour if you're 155 pounds and 56 calories per hour if you're 185 pounds, according to a "Harvard Heart Letter" report. When you're more active, your heart rate increases and you burn more calories regardless of whether you're formally exercising. Thus, you'll burn more calories vigorously painting a house than casually painting a house.
Outside Painting
Painting the outside of a house burns an average of 444 calories per hour if you weigh 185 pounds, 372 calories per hour if you weigh 155 pounds and 300 calories per hour if you weigh 125 pounds, according to the "Harvard Heart Letter" report. Burning 3,500 calories is the same as burning 1 pounds. Thus, you need to paint a house for about eight hours to lose 1 pound if you're 185 lb., about 9.5 hours if you're 155 pounds and about 12 hours if you're 125 pounds. You will lose 1 pounds faster if you paint vigorously because you will burn more calories than the average person of identical weight.
Inside Painting
Painting the walls of your house, or any other indoor part of your house, burns fewer calories than outside painting because it requires less effort from your heart. Painting indoors, with a slower heartbeat, burns an average of 400 calories per hour if you weigh 185 pounds, 334 calories per hour if you weigh 155 pounds. and 270 calories per hour if you weigh 125 pounds.
Comparisons
Painting a house outside burns the same amount of calories as hanging storm windows and cleaning rain gutters, according to the "Harvard Heart Letter" report. Painting indoors burns the same amount of calories as remodeling, gardening, mowing the lawn, refinishing furniture, and laying or removing carpets or tiles. Outside carpentry, roofing, shoveling snow and chopping wood burn 60 to 88 more calories per hour than outside painting. Wiring, plumbing, auto repair and raking the lawn burn fewer calories than outside and inside painting.
References
- "Essentials for Health and Wellness"; Gordon Edlin and Eric Golanty; 2004
- "The Complete Guide to Walking"; Mark Fenton; 2008
- "Harvard Heart Letter"; Calories Burned in 30 Minutes for People of Three Weights; July 2004
- The Merck Manual of Medical Information; 2003
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