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Weed Your Way To Fitness

I was out in my yard last evening, pulling weeds for about an hour. I have another hour’s worth of weeding to do today; just as likely I’ll spend some time pruning and I was thinking of moving two of the rose bushes from where they are to closer to one of the sprinklers.

Who needs gym equipment when you’ve got a pretty active workout waiting for you in the front yard, back yard or both. When we do a lot of lawn and garden maintenance, there are plenty of activities to get our heart moving, to work muscles in our arms, legs and back. There is also a lot of calorie burning activities for example – digging burns 8.6 calories per minute, pushing the lawn mower burns about 7.6 calories per minute (more if you have an uneven yard and go up and down hill a lot) and raking burns about 3.7 calories.

Gardening is Work

For those who don’t enjoy gardening, I’m sure it is an onerous chore. I like working in the garden, but only in the coolness of the morning and the relative coolness of the late afternoon, evening hours before the sun gets too high. For one thing, I get plenty hot working in the garden without the heat of the summer sun. I’m also prone to getting headaches from too much heat on the back of my head – so I have this great big hat I like to wear if I’m working out in it during the day.

The great thing about gardening is for most of us – we’re going to spend anywhere from ten to thirty minutes every day out there doing something. I always see something that needs to be done and I want to add some more flowers to my side yard which means I am going to increase the amount of maintenance the yard requires.

Gardening is a great way to increase your levels of daily activity – for someone looking for a weight loss or weight training program – you may want to do more than gardening. But if you are looking for ways to increase your daily activity while not wasting time in the gym – then add some gardening to your day – and increase your regular activities by turning everything up a notch. It’s amazing how much fitness we can add with just a few chores here and there.

Besides, for me – the garden is the biggest payoff. Be sure to check out the Home & Garden blog for more ideas of things to do around the house and the garden!

Related Articles:

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This entry was posted in Cardiovascular and tagged , , , , by Heather Long. Bookmark the permalink.

About Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago. They have a beautiful daughter who just turned five years old. She is learning to read and preparing for kindergarten in the fall. An author of more than 300 articles and 500+ web copy pieces, Heather has also written three books as a ghostwriter. Empty Canoe Publishing accepted a novel of her own. A former horse breeder, Heather used to get most of her exercise outside. In late 2004, early 2005 Heather started studying fitness full time in order to get herself back into shape. Heather worked with a personal trainer for six months and works out regularly. She enjoys shaking up her routine and checking out new exercises. Her current favorites are the treadmill (she walks up to 90 minutes daily) and doing yoga for stretching. She also performs strength training two to three times a week. Her goals include performing in a marathon such as the Walk for Breast Cancer Awareness or Team in Training for Lymphoma research. She enjoys sharing her knowledge and experience through the fitness and marriage blogs.