If you’ve ever had to get down on your knees and pull weeds by hand, you’re probably wondering how many calories you’re burning. Judging by how resilient some weeds can be, you’re probably thinking it’s quite a lot.
The general consensus is that you will burn between 200 and 400 calories per hour by hand pulling weeds, not to be confused with weed eating. That’s also the rate applied to typical gardening and planting flowers.
There’s quite a disparity there, with a 200 calorie differential so you may be wondering why the large window with how many calories you can burn pulling weeds. Mostly, it boils down to weight. The heavier you are, the more calories you’ll burn.
Calories burned Pulling Weeds Calculator
How Many Calories Do You Burn Weeding?
Most measurements that determine the loss of calories for a given activity utilize the MET algorithm. MET stands for Metabolic Equivalent and it’s based on a numerical rating applied to physical activities and your body weight.
Your body weight is calculated in kilograms, so whenever you plug in the numbers, you’ll have to convert your weight in pounds to weight in kilograms. You can do this by writing down that 1lb is equal to 0.454kg.
Next, you’ll need the number rating that is compiled in the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities. When you have both numbers, plug them into the formula:
(MET x 3.5 x bodyweight) ÷ 200 = calories lost per minute.
To calculate the calories lost for your particular body weight, find one of the three weeding activities covered in the Compendium.
- Light effort weeding: 3.5
- General Weeding: 4.5
- Heavy weeding with hand tools: 5.0
If you weigh 112lbs, you will multiply that with .454 to convert to kilograms, which will come to 50.8kg rounded up to 51kg.
For the light weeding activity that will be (3.5 x 3.5 x 51) ÷ 200 = 3.12 calories per minute, which will come out to 187.2 calories per hour.
How Many Calories Are Burned By Weeding For 30 Minutes
Going off of the same numbers, which will change according to your own weight, you come out to 3.12 calories per minute. Since the MET formula calculates the number of calories burned per minute, all you have to do is multiply the resulting number by how many minutes you were weeding.
If you were weeding in the garden for 30 minutes at 3.12 calories per minute, you would burn 93.6 calories, which you can round up to 94 because we can keep a secret.
What Burns More Calories, Gardening Or Walking?
There are several categories for gardening under the Compendium of Physical Activities and many more categories for walking. Fortunately, they’re all very descriptive. So we can take the standard number for both walking and gardening, gardening would burn more calories.
Standard walking 2.5mph on a level surface is rated at 3.0, while even the most lightweight gardening is 3.5. However, walking is a continuous effort, so long as you don’t stop for a break. Gardening is stopping and going. So ultimately, walking would probably prevail in most calories burned.
Does Weeding Count As Exercise?
Any physical activity that you engage in for a period that exceeds 30 minutes—and even some activities that don’t last that long—you are burning calories, using muscles, and placing your body under strain.
So long as you’re physically active, it hardly matters what it is you are doing. Just because we are sociologically conditioned to see weightlifting, yoga, and running as exercise and gardening as yard work, doesn’t mean there is a real difference between the methods of activity
Final Word
Anytime you use your body’s energy to physically move about and engage in physical activity, you’re burning calories. Getting out and working in the garden, even if you’re cool and not sweating, means you are engaged in physical activity.
Not only is gardening good for your plants and your lawn, it’s also good for you as well.
