Jan 21, 2011 20:31 GMT  ·  By

Should you be a fan of doing housework, particularly mopping floors, then cleaning company Vileda has excellent news for you: a new study comes to show that mopping floors for one hour burns more calories than one hour at the gym.

Practical considerations aside, the study could represent a drastic difference for women who simply don’t have the time to hit the gym because it shows them that other calorie-burning alternatives are also possible.

The Daily Mail informs that one hour mopping floors is better in terms of burning calories than one hour and 10 minutes of lifting weights – and definitely not perceived as equally difficult as that.

“An hour of pushing a mop across the floor and wringing it out in a bucket works off 238 calories, the equivalent of a chocolate bar or two small glasses of wine,” the British publication says.

“To sweat this off at the gym, you would have to spend up to an hour on an exercise bike or an hour and 10 minutes lifting weights,” adds the Mail.

Of course, you can always think beyond the gym. “Other alternatives include an hour of ballroom dancing or half an hour of football,” the Mail points out.

What this means is that, if you choose mopping floors over a subscription at the gym, you basically get the best of both worlds: you exercise, therefore burn calories (and will probably lose weight), and you can do so in the comfort of your home, without spending money.

On the downside, there’s the issue of the house you should be living in to have floors that require at least 1 hour of mopping.

Once that out of the way, there is literally nothing standing between you and the body you always wanted.

“Our tests showed that mopping the house can result in impressive calorie burning,” Vileda spokesman Lindsey Taylor says for the Mail.

The company is now working on making a mop with “an inbuilt calorie counter in an attempt to boost its appeal as a piece of exercise equipment,” the tab writes.