I have a very large oak tree in my front yard, and it's dropping leaves by the bushel. While raking and bagging leaves is a bit strenuous, I have never really considered the activity exercise.
But when I calculated the calories burned for 30 minutes of gardening versus 30 minutes of walking at a 20 minute a mile pace, gardening wins by 50 calories. I know when I rake, I also do lost of squats while bagging the leaves. So I am starting to reconsider my position on raking, what about you . . .
I don't count things like that as exercise because knowing me, I'd be more likely to skip my actual workout if I convinced myself that everyday tasks counted as exercise. I think of things like that as a bonus that I don't count the calories burned for. For example, I work in a cafe that is HUGE and involves LOTS of walking, stairs, reaching, lifting, bending, et cetera in an 8 hour shift. Add on to all that activity the fact that there is never time to take more than a pee break and definitely no time to do more than cram one bite of something in your mouth before chewing and swallowing frantically before you have to help the next customer, and you have a lot of calories burned with very little intake. But I don't count that as a workout. I still run for an hour everyday. And I still have considerable body fat!
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I'm with you jennifer! I don't count things like cleaning, raking leaves, walking around as "exercise" --- I just see them as a bonus!
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I'm with Jennifer, too. I consider chores or active non-workouts as bonuses, too.
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If its exercise its incidental exercise, just something you do as part of your day. I wouldn't consider raking leaves a work out or replace my work out with leaf raking.
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i don't really consider it to be exercise because i don't feel like i'm really working all that hard to do it. even though we have a relatively large yard, it's just not the same thing to me. i guess that there is some value in doing it but i wouldn't use that as an excuse to not go to the gym for a day - it's an 'add on' but that's about it in my opinion
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I'm with most of you - it IS exercise, but I won't count it because it'd just give me an excuse to not bother with my regular workout.
Things like that are just extras. 
I'm with everyone else...I don't consider housework/chores as a "workout"; just an additional bonus to my normal workout routine. Even if I am burning a lot of calories.
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While I acknowledge that it is exercise, it doesn't substitute my regular workout routine. Bonus!
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Well, I don't exercise. So when I rake leaves, I am sore for daaaays! So it's definitely exercise for me!
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I know it does the same thing as exercise, but I'd still probably feel like I had to do my normal routine that day.
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