Weeding is a lot like eating potato chips, you can’t pull just one. For most gardeners, weeds are a bane. I went to England for a week last month and during the 7 short days that I was gone, the weeds staged a coup on my flower beds. Gardening can be an active workout, just ask most of the most spectacular gardeners in your neighborhood, because caring for it
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.