MET (Metabolic Equivalent of Task) is a measure of energy consumed per hour. A MET score of one is the sort of energy you would expend watching TV.

Anything which gets a score above three counts as moderate activity. Above six and you are in the realms of "vigorous".

Ironing and dusting, not surprisingly, scored modestly, with MET scores of 1.3 and 1.5 respectively.

Vacuuming and mopping, though hardly Olympic sports, scored just above three METs, making them moderate-intensity. While doing these activities our volunteers were burning three times more energy than when they were just sitting.

Our volunteers claimed to spend an average of 37 minutes per week on these two tasks, which meant they were already almost a quarter of the way toward the 150-minute target.

Then we moved outside, to see how much energy they would burn through doing typical outdoor chores like washing the car, cleaning windows, mowing the lawn or planting flowers.

Surprisingly enough all these activities broke the magic MET barrier of three. Washing windows required the least effort (3.1), then planting flowers (3.4), washing the car (3.6) and finally mowing the lawn, which racked up a score of 4.4.

As Andy pointed out, although planting flowers doesn't require a lot of moving around, it does involve using a bit of upper body strength, sufficient to count.

Our volunteers said they spent an average of 72 minutes a week doing outdoor activities. So when we combined indoor and outdoor chores their total reached an impressive 109 minutes.

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