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Health Care

Healthy Multitasking: Get Your Exercise While Gardening

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Do you laugh out loud when people say they get their exercise by gardening? If so, you may be thinking that gardeners simply putter about, planting pansies. Sounds like you’ve never tended to a community garden, where you may haul 500 pounds of cow manure or plant 30 trees!

Simply putting a few wheelbarrows full of fresh wood chips around a raised garden bed may have you feeling sore the next day. In short, gardening can be a major workout. Here’s how to make it safe and effective:

1. Assess your current fitness level. See your doctor if you have any concerns or haven’t been active in a while. Gardening involves walking, bending, lifting, twisting, crouching, and even heart-pounding cardio that will have you sweating in mere moments. If your idea of exercise has been walking to the office elevator to go one floor up, you really need to start slow and, like your plants, grow in the garden.

2. Wear appropriate “sports” clothes. You wouldn’t dream of swimming without a bathing suit or running without the right footwear. So consider these “dress-to-win” tips when gardening. Dress in layers when it’s colder out, and, no matter the season, wear appropriate sun protection. Be extra conscientious about footwear—closed-toe shoes are best. When you’re out in the garden, you’re around sharp tools and, occasionally, an unexpected mound of fire ants.

3. Warm up your muscles. Don’t just grab that pitchfork and start tossing the compost pile. Walk a bit. Do a few stretches. Loosen up the joints. Try a moving meditation like yoga or Tai Chi. Then, establish a comfortable pace with frequent breaks to catch your breath and have a sip of water. Switch sides when doing a repetitive garden task. And don’t be a hero, and do more than what feels comfortable.

4. Establish a goal. If fitness is an important reason you’re gardening, try to attain your objectives each time you garden. Perhaps you want to spread wood chips at the community garden for half an hour, or spend two hours building a fence. Voice your goal to others so that they don’t distract you with conversation or brownies at the picnic table (at least not until later).

5. Offer your physical help. Many seniors and those with physical limitations are involved with community gardening but have difficulty with some of the more physical tasks. Offering to help them kills two birds with one stone—you help build community while getting a good workout. What’s more, they may be happy to return the favor, providing you with extra seeds or an extra hand when needed.

6. Take a leadership position. If you want to be sure you won’t slack off on your fitness routine, lead a community garden team that requires regular action, like the compost team or the grounds committee. You might also offer to mow the lawn or pick up the giant tubs of kitchen scraps from local restaurants. And keep an eye out for opportunities to get your heart pumping at the garden—stacking bales of hay, moving frames for raised garden beds, turning cover crops into the soil, hoeing weeds, hand-pulling Bermuda grass, and more. You may just find that the community garden has become your new gym.

Want to pump it up even more? Walk or ride your bike to and from the garden for extra exercise. Just be careful with that pitchfork.

Tap in next week when I share some tips about sourcing supplies for your garden.

Ask and Answer

What are the best weight loss and muscle building supplements that work?

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Ask:

What are the weight loss and muscle building supplements or drinks or pills to take that really work?!? Please help!

Answers (2)

Answer 1:

None of them are approved by any medical or dietary organization because they just don’t work. Except for making money for the sellers.
80% of weight loss is diet.
You can eat a healthy diet and lose weight.
You can eat a healthy diet and exercise and lose more weight.
You can exercise and eat a poor diet and not lose and even gain weight.
A good healthy diet high in fiber, lean meats, eggs, complex carbohydrates, whole grains, antioxidant foods, healthy beverages and low in added sugar and salt help people lose weight, lower cholesterol, increase energy, improve brain function, lower blood pressure, reduce cancer risk and have a more positive lifestyle!
You need to eat a lot more food and a lot more fiber!
Diets that exclude foods from any food group are fad diets and do not lead to permanent weight loss or solve any other health issues.
First, try to kick your fiber intake to 40 grams of both soluble and insoluble fiber.
Whatever you do, get your fiber from your food, not from a jar.
Fruits and vegetables have good fiber in them. A high fiber diet increases the metabolism.
Try a breakfast cereal with at least 20% of recommended daily allowance of fiber in it. They are usually low in sugar so there is a double benefit. Blueberries or raspberries on top add more fiber and antioxidants. But fresh or frozen, not the kind in syrup. Oatmeal with berries or a bit of fresh honey is also good.
Raw nuts are a great source of fiber, healthy fats, and antioxidants. Avocados are the best.
Lots of beans, peas, and grains are high fiber. Whole grain breads. Fiber kicks up the metabolism so you actually burn more calories. These foods will give you more gas in the beginning but if eaten daily, the bacteria in the digestive tract will elevate lowering the gas output.
This will get you on the path for a healthy daily bowel movement. This helps clean the system and aids healthy digestion. A high fiber diet reduces transit time – the amount of time it takes food from when it is eaten to when it is expelled. This reduces toxicity in the system both from internally produced, ingested, and external toxins.
I know it goes against everything you’ve heard or read but eating lots of the right foods will actually help you lose weight!
Next, take an age appropriate basic daily multivitamin. Don’t look at your multivitamin as nutrition but more as an insurance policy. Think of it as filling in the gaps in your daily diet as opposed to a primary source of nutrients.
You have to drink lots of water to be healthy. But you can disguise it. Fill your glass all the way full with ice before pouring low sugar beverages. Try iced green tea with a splash of orange juice in it for sweet. More antioxidants. Add lemon juice to water for flavor. Slice up a cucumber and float it in pitcher of water. Gives it salty fresh taste. But you must drink up to 100 oz of water daily to help your body get rid of waste and the natural toxins.
Last, you need to get 8-9 hours of quality sleep depending on your age. All recent sleep studies report a connection between poor sleep patterns and weight gain. This includes going to bed as close to the same time every night including weekends. Most of us stay up late Friday and Saturday night and it throws us off.
You must combine a healthy diet with exercise to multiply the benefit. Whether an hour a day in the weight room or just a 30 minute brisk walk every day, the added benefit of a regular exercise program really do increase and accelerate healthy weight loss.

I lost 30 pounds in 5 months by spending my money at the grocery and gym and have kept it off for over two years. Less than 3% of people that attempt weight loss lose it and keep it off for two years. It is not easy. It is a lifestyle change.
Good luck and good health.

Answer 2:

The secret to gaining muscle is to get stronger. The stronger you get, meaning the more weight your can lift in the gym, the more muscular you’ll be. This is especially true if you’re a natural drug-free lifter with average or, worse, lousy genetics. Go to any gym and you’ll find most guys doing body-part split routines. They’ll train five to six times a week… one muscle a day… going to failure on every set in order to get pumped… and using at least ten isolation exercises per workout to hit each muscle from every angle. I’m sure this sounds familiar to you. I recommend you to check this portal it will be helpful to you in building strong muscle .
Many guys think they’ll build muscle with these body-part split routines because that’s what they read in some muscle magazine. Or because that’s how they saw some ripped dude in their gym train, and so they hope to get the same results if they train the exact same way – monkey see, monkey do.