It's back to trying to figure out exercise calories for yard & garden work. I spent a lot of time yesterday pulling the bane of my gardening existence, lesser bittercress.



The CalorieKing manager list 6 cal/minute for weeding but as I've said before, I don't buy it. That's more than walking at a moderate pace. Weeding for me is usually sitting on an overturned bucket and pulling weeds out by the roots. If that kind of weeding really burned 6 cal/minute I would never have gained at least half of the 30 pounds I've lost to date.

I read an interesting article recently but it only went so far in that the rates are for someone who weighs 180 lb. and it still listed weeding as good burn:
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/04/econundrum-gardening-exercise-calories

One rate I did buy was this: One exception to the greener gardening=better exercise rule: "gardening with heavy power tools [i.e. the tiller]," which burns a whopping 243 calories [30 minutes], presumably because the tools are, well, heavy.