Six Ways to Clean Your Way to Lean if You Don't Have Time to Workout!

Spring cleaning tasks piling up? Don't have time to do you beachbody or other dvd workouts on a regular basis? We thought we offer some ideas on how to clean you what to lean below:

1.Dust and polish (burn 2,288 calories per year). This can be one of the easiest chores to overlook, but since you're doing a deep cleaning, why not get totally into it? You don't even need fancy furniture sprays—just a combination of olive oil and white vinegar. It's like salad dressing for your furniture, only better (combine 1 cup of the oil and a 1/4 cup of white vinegar in a bottle; shake well). Use a soft cloth to work it in and buff out your furniture. You'll not only expend elbow grease (getting a bit of upper-body exercise in), but you'll have naturally shiny furniture. Light dusting burns about 170 calories per hour (assuming a body weight of 150 pounds); with more heavy scrubbing and cleaning, you burn 204 calories per hour.


2.Change the bedding (burn 2,728 calories per year). Although there may be some debate about how often you should change the sheets on your bed, most people think that once every week or two is a good standard. To get in a little more exercise, be sure to make your bed every morning. This way, you'll have a nice bed to slip into every night and you'll also burn 136 calories per hour. Of course, none of us will take an hour to make the bed (Martha Stewart, notwithstanding), but even at 15 minutes, you've burned enough calories to make up for half a glass of wine.

3.Clean the bathroom (burn 2,891 calories per year). Sure, scrubbing toilets is no one's idea of a good time, but it doesn't have to be such a chore. Put on some fast music and get moving. If you make it a little race or game for yourself, you can get the whole bathroom clean in just 20 minutes. If you use large up-and-down movements (like when cleaning a shower door), you'll even get your stretches in. Just by cleaning the bathroom, you can burn at least 231 calories per hour.

4.Sweep the floor (burn 2,896 calories per year). For outdoor areas and garage floors, nothing beats an old-fashioned broom and dustpan. This activity burns 272 calories per hour. So, it makes sense to sweep up the driveway and even get out to the sidewalk. Although sweeping ranked 7th in calories burned, you can increase the level of your workout by getting to all the nooks and crannies of your property that you usually avoid. Even better, stretch up and knock down those cobwebs that have been accumulating in the corners of your garage.

5.Tidy up (burn 4,541 calories per year). This is a general household chore that you can add to your routine every day. Don't worry about being efficient because the more back and forth you walk, the more steps you get in. If you have stairs in your home, even better. Be sure to keep your abs tightened when you do your chores, since it'll give your ab muscles a bit of a workout and improve your posture. Also, be sure to put away heavy things (try carrying those storage boxes down to the basement) to get in some weight training exercise. Even a light tidying up lets you burn over 170 calories per hour. Step it up and you can get it to over 240 calories burned per hour.

6.Scrub the floor (burn 5,117 calories per year). Get on your hands and knees and scrub those tile or linoleum floors. Again, use big, broad circular movements and reach under the bed and other hard-to-reach places. You'll burn about 258 calories per hour, enough to make up for a serving of chicken nuggets.
 
Article excerpted from Cecilia H. Lee
Beachbody Newletter April, 2008