5 Surprising Ways to Burn Calories
You don’t have to go to the gym to get a great workout. Here are five simple ways to work up a sweat.
Many people have a hard time fitting in the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, and those suffering from obesity face additional hurdles. For instance, weight-related joint pain can make it too painful to go jogging or use cardio machines. Also, fatigue and shortness of breath will cut any workout short.
Fortunately, any physical activity contributes to your weight loss success and vigorous workouts aren’t the only way to burn fat and lose weight. In fact, you’d be surprised at how many calories you can burn by just going about your day.
The Importance of Exercise After Surgery
Staying active is a core component of a healthy lifestyle, but it becomes even more important after weight loss surgery. After bariatric surgery you’ll lose a significant amount of your excess weight, which is great for overall weight loss but not so great for muscle tone.
Regular exercise after weight loss surgery — following a full recovery period — helps your body bounce back from the procedure and regain muscle. Lean muscle keeps your body strong and helps you burn more calories at rest and during workouts, which speeds up your weight loss progress. Staying active also helps you live longer, increases mobility, and improves your cardiac health. To unlock these benefits and more, all you have to do is move.
5 Surprising Ways to Burn Calories
Exercise can take a variety of different forms, and you don’t have to go to the gym or download virtual workouts to get your heart pumping. All of the following everyday activities burn as many calories (or even more!) as taking a brisk 30-minute walk.
- Cleaning: Cleaning the house is an excellent combination of high and low impact activity. Giving your tub a good scrub really gets your heart rate up while dusting brings it back down, and before you know it you’ve burned 167 calories in just 30 minutes.
- Playing with Kids: Have you ever noticed how exhausted you feel after spending the day with your kids or grandkids? Keeping up with children is a sneaky (and fun) form of exercise that’s good for your physical and emotional health. Playing more intense games like hop-scotch, tag, or double-dutch can burn up to 222 calories per half hour.
- Gardening: Gardening and yard work are great ways to get your exercise in without feeling like you’re working out. You can get your heart rate up by spreading grass seed across a large yard and holding hefty pruning shears will tone your upper arms. With gardening, you can burn around 167 calories in 30 minutes. Also, tending to your garden is meditative and can help you reduce stress.
- Shoveling Snow: Shoveling your walkway can be annoying, but’s great exercise. Digging your shovel into the snow works your legs and glutes, while lifting the heavy shovel to toss the snow aside works your biceps. Shoveling by hand burns 223 calories in 30 minutes. If you’re looking for a low impact version, using a snowblower burns about 167 calories.
- Moving Household Items: Redecorating your space can also redefine your waistline. Moving furniture and carrying boxes can burn between 266 and 300 calories per half hour. If you’re going up and down the stairs while moving things around, you can kick up the calorie burning even further.
No matter how you exercise, in the gym or in the garden, the most important thing is that you stay active. The Harvard Medical School has provided a comprehensive table featuring dozens of activities and how many calories you can burn while doing them for 30 minutes. Take a look, and you’ll see there’s more than one way to keep your body moving.
Get Active! (In Any Way You Like)
For more tips on staying active after bariatric surgery, contact the weight loss professionals at Long Island Laparoscopic Doctors today! Give us a call to schedule a quick consultation and we’ll walk you through your options.