Calories Burned Gardening For 3 Hours

Forget the gym and get gardening! Green-fingered Brits burn off 19,000 calories a year tending their plants

Average green fingered Brit spends five and a half hours in the garden
19,000 equivalent to 9.5 full days' worth of food for women and 7.6 for men

Published: 15:27 GMT, 13 May 2013 | Updated: 01:17 GMT, 14 May 2013

Don't bother donning lycra for a gruelling aerobics class – just pop on your wellies and head out the back door.

Researchers found three hours of gardening can have the same effect as an intense hour-long gym session.

Their poll showed the typical gardener spends more than five hours a week tending their precious plot, burning up to 722 calories.

Over a gardening season that works out at 18,772 calories per year, equivalent to running seven marathons

Over a six-month gardening season that works out at 18,772 calories a year – the equivalent of running nearly seven marathons. And the hobby could help burn a million calories over a lifetime.

The study was carried out with a group of 100 gardeners who were asked to monitor the amount of time spent doing a series of common gardening tasks over a four week period.

Gardening tasks that were monitored included weeding, digging, mowing the lawn, hedge trimming, trimming shrubs and trees, raking, planting shrubs, and moving garden waste using a wheel barrow.

Just doing half an hour weeding can burn up to 150 calories and tasks that handle heavy electrical equipment such as hedge trimming will give you a good workout burning 400 calories per hour.

Tasks that handle heavy electrical equipment such as hedge trimming will give you a good workout

One gardener who took part in the task said: 'It is amazing to see how much time I actually spend out in the garden each week during the spring and summer seasons and how long some garden tasks take to do.

'I don't have much time to go to the gym or do an exercise class each week so it's good to know that just doing something that I love is giving me a workout too.'

Another gardener from the study said: 'I've always known when I'm out in the garden that it's giving me a bit of exercise but I hadn't realised quite how much of a workout.

'It is great to see that even some of the simplest of tasks such as using the wheel barrow and planting shrubs can burn around 300 calories per hour.'

A spokesman from NetVoucherCodes.co.uk who conducted the research said: 'Most of us see spending time out in the garden as a leisurely job to do at weekends and during the spring and summer months.

'However it's fantastic to see just by spending a day or five hours each week in the garden you can easily burn up to around 700 calories, giving gardeners a good workout too.

'I hope this will now encourage those who don't get out in the garden so often to take up gardening.'

Gardening tasks that were monitored included weeding, digging, mowing the lawn and hedge trimming