Get skinny while gardening

October 16, 7:16 PMGardening ExaminerRobin Ripley

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If the lure of the great outdoors, the fabulous fresh food you can produce and the added value you can add to your home with a fine looking yard weren’t enough, here’s another reason to garden. You can get skinny.

Okay, I might not totally believe that you can get skinny, but I do believe that the exercise we get gardening helps to burn off those extra Starbucks lattes and late-night cookie binges.  The fact is that anything that gets us away from our computer screens,  game controllers, television screens and off the couch and forces us to move our bodies benefits us in many ways.

And I personally believe that although I can target and improve particular muscle groups on the machines at the gym, when it comes to aerobic exercise—just sheer calorie burning to shed the pounds of fat that we spend the rest of our lives accumulating—gardening has more additional benefits than any other calorie-burning activity I can think of. (See first paragraph, please.) You do not need to drive to the gym to walk on the treadmill or churn around on the elliptical trainer to burn those calories. You can do it in the privacy of your own back yard—and have something to show for it in the process.

Here are some examples of calories expended per hour for the typical 150 pound person for some typical gardening activities.

Gardening with heavy power tools – 408 calories
Light, Picking Flowers or Vegetables - 240 calories
Loading or Stacking Wood, Loading/unloading or Carrying Lumber – 340 calories
Mowing lawn, power mower – 374 calories
Mowing lawn, riding mower – 170 calories
Raking lawn – 292 calories
Spading, Filling Garden, Composting - 340 calories
Spading, Filling Garden, Composting – 340 calories
Watering garden while standing – 102 calories
Weeding/cultivating garden – 306 calories

Now get moving!

Source:  Calorie Count

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