Losing Weight Through Gardening

There are many different ways that you can exercise and reap the benefits that exercising has to offer. During poor weather, one of the most convenient forms of exercise is perhaps running on a treadmill or pedaling on a stationary bicycle indoors.

These can be great alternatives to working outside in cold or wet weather, but when good weather arrives, you may want to adventure outdoors. One form of exercise that is often overlooked as a form of working out is gardening.

However, you can work out your entire body through gardening and you can burn quite a few calories doing it as well. Not only will you be able to enjoy the benefits of working out, but you will be able to enjoy relaxing afterwards in a beautiful environment that you worked hard to create.

In addition, during harvest season you will have access to a large variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. An improve diet of these good foods combined with gardening on a regular basis can help you meet your weight loss goals.

The act of gardening naturally includes all of the elements that you should make sure you get in a workout routine on your treadmill indoors or for any other activity. It includes stretching, weightlifting, and even some cardiovascular workout.

If your goal is to burn calories while in the garden, you will probably want to use as little machinery as possible. This will force you to use your body more and it will help you use more calories faster.

You will burn much more energy by using manual clippers, trimmers, and lawnmowers instead of the electronic versions. While it may take more time, remember that you are combining your exercise routine with this refreshing form of work.

The most effective way to garden as a form of working out is to make sure you do thirty to sixty minutes every day. Even though you may do as much work, working all day only on Saturday, will not be as beneficial to your body.

The best times to garden for your fruits and vegetables is either in the early morning or later in the evening. These are the cooler parts of the day so the plants will not be under as much strain when you are working with them.

In addition, you will have to use less water when you are watering them because the moisture will not evaporate as quickly. Working early in the morning or later at night should fit will with whatever schedule you have during the day.

Some of the activities that are associated with gardening that can provide you with physical benefits weeding, planting, watering, raking, carrying the leaves, pruning, heavy digging, mowing the lawn, pushing the wheelbarrow full of debris, carrying plants, carrying bags of soil or fertilizer, and so forth. There are many other activities that have not been listed here as well that can help you properly take care of your garden.

A mixture of these activities can help you burn somewhere between 300 and 600 calories in one hour. This is as effective as many other forms of exercise that are commonly performed by athletes.

In fact, someone who weighs 170 pounds can burn 243 calories while moving with a push mower in only half an hour. The same person can burn 364 calories in the same amount of time shoveling wet, dense, or heavy snow.

Two hundred and forty three calories can also be spent chopping wood. Even 61 calories are used simply walking around and watering for an hour.

As gardening is a form of working out, you will want to make sure you warm up with something not too strenuous so that you do not injure or hurt yourself. You can pull a muscle through gardening just as easily as you can through running or biking.

In addition, it will be easier to garden much longer if you stretch first. Another thing you will want to be mindful of is your back.

Activities during which you are slightly bent over such as raking, hoeing, and weeding, you will want to make sure that you keep your back straight instead of hunched. In addition, you will want to make sure that you lift the heavy bags of fertilizer and soil, or heavy plants, with your legs so that you do not strain your back.

This can prevent future back pain and issues. This will help you be able to keep gardening for years to come, no matter how old you become.

Terry Daniels is a personal trainer and has authored hundreds of articles relating to health and fitness. He recommends (http://www.nordictrack.com) for your personal training needs.