Mopping beats gym in burning calories

London: Spare yourself the gym — a better way to burn calories is to mop them up, research shows. 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.

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.

Other alternatives include an hour of ballroom dancing or half an hour of football.

In the face of such competition, mopping might have a limited appeal, but it is at least cheaper than going to the gym and you can do it in the comfort of your home.

Unless you live in a mansion, though, you are likely to face the challenge of finding an hour's worth of floors to mop. And it is unclear how those who favour carpets will benefit from the research, which was carried out by the cleaning-product firm Vileda. The firm is now researching a mop with an inbuilt calorie counter in an attempt to boost its appeal as exercise equipment.