You can burn calories while doing your chores. The house and garden will look better, too.

Give the vacuum cleaner a shove, and voilà! You’re not just cleaning your carpet, you’re burning calories, getting a workout, and even reducing your disease risk.

Consider this: A study involving more than 30,000 normal-weight women found that those who engaged in vigorous activity reduced their risk for breast cancer by 30 percent. The study cited such activities as scrubbing floors, washing windows, doing demanding yard work, digging in the garden, and chopping wood. Gardening has also been tied to a reduced risk for heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other forms of cancer.

Housework might even help you live longer. A study of people in their 70s and 80s found that for every 287 calories burned through daily activities such as vacuuming, mopping the floor, or washing windows (equal to 1.25 hours of chores), the risk of dying early falls by 32 percent.

So do what you can around the house to rev up your heart rate, move your muscles, and increase your calorie burn. Here are some suggestions.

Work Harder
Thinking of housework as a workout rather than a menial task can take away some of the drudgery. Use your new appreciation for the process to look for ways to make it harder.

Remember, the key word is vigorous. If you can whistle while you work, that’s great. But ideally, you should be slightly winded. You should be able to say only a few words without stopping to catch your breath.

One way to bump up the program is to build traditional exercise into your cleaning routine. As you’re sweeping the carpet, for example, try the vacuum lunge:

• Take a big step forward with the leg that’s opposite of the hand you’re using to hold the vacuum.
• Bend both knees until the calf of your back leg is parallel to the floor and your front knee is directly above your toes.
• Pull up to a standing position and switch arms and legs, taking a sizable step forward with your other leg.

Lunges that use your body weight strengthen the quadriceps and buttocks.

Unplug the Tools
You can also make a task more physically challenging by ditching laborsaving devices. You’ll get a much more significant aerobic workout, for example, if you shovel snow rather than using a snowblower. Try mowing your lawn with the push mower instead of the riding mower, or raking leaves yourself rather than using a leaf blower. Things may take longer, but that’s a plus. You’ll burn more calories the longer you’re at it, which helps prevent weight gain.

Of course, like any exercise, vigorous house and yard work can cause muscle soreness. If you’re new to these activities, check with your doctor first and start off slowly. But once you’ve been doing it for a while, pick up the pace.

To work faster, put on music with a quick beat that makes you want to move. Turn it up so you can hear it over the vacuum or the washer.

Play the Numbers Game
For extra motivation, keep track of the calories you use:

• Visit the Get Moving Calculator to see how many calories your chores burn. At www.caloriecontrol.org, the calculator is on the “Healthy Weight Tool Kit” pull-down menu.
• Strap on a pedometer. Watching your daily step count mount as you sweep and mop floors can be just as satisfying as crossing these jobs off your to-do list. In general, strive for at least 10,000 steps a day, whether you’re cleaning the house or just walking.
• Track your progress by recording your steps in a walking log. You can find one at www.bcbs.com/innovations/walkingworks/
  walking-works-log.html.

By Sandra Gordon, a feature writer for Vitality. For more information, visit www.health.gov/paguidelines.

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