Garden Fitness: Yard Work is a Great Way to Exercise & Lose Weight

Did you know gardening is actually good for you? Gardening is an enjoyable pastime and relatively free. It’s also widely available to anyone interested. There is no need to go to a fancy gym or spend money on exercise equipment. Your gym is the outdoors, surrounded by nature and fresh air. Your equipment can be found in gardening tools such as rakes, hoes, mowers, wheelbarrows, clippers, shovels, and watering cans.

Both gardening and yard work contributes to healthy living. Approximately 300 calories an hour can be burned just by gardening. Not only can you burn calories, but in the end you’ll have a beautiful landscape to show for it as well. Gardening is a close second to walking as far as exercise goes and can actually lower blood pressure and cholesterol, as well as prevent diabetes, heart disease, depression, and osteoporosis when practiced on a regular basis. Gardening gives all major muscle groups a good workout including your legs, arms, buttocks, stomach, neck, and back. Whether it comes in the form of digging up soil, setting plants or carrying water, exercise is taking place. Weeding, pruning, mowing, and even walking around the yard can increase heart rate and tone up the body. Your brain even gets a chance to workout as you plan garden designs and absorb information from resource materials.

Gardening is a good way to lose inches from your waistline as well. Not only is it fun and relaxing, but there is no diet regimen to follow. You’re simply doing what you already love. If done on a regular basis, you can lose weight without even being aware that you’re doing it. In fact, there are lots of gardening chores that can burn fat; and if you are able to burn off more calories than you consume, weight loss should come with ease. One good way to burn those unwanted calories is by choosing to mow the lawn with a push mower rather than riding. Believe it or not, this can burn up to 300 calories or more. Other yard work like raking and pruning can burn close to 200 calories; and even simple garden tasks such as tilling, digging, planting, and weeding can burn up to 200 calories as well.