There is a growing number of people in the US who are obese. This is a serious concern among the populace. It has come to the point that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated that it’s an epidemic. Many experts believe that it has reached this point because many Americans live inactive lives.
Many Americans consider exercise as a luxury that only fit people can do. However, many physical activities we do today count as exercise. If people only start to do it consistently and frequently, they can reduce or maintain their weight at a healthy level. Here are some daily activities you do that count as exercise.
Any Activities With Your Dog
Dogs are the most commonly owned pets in the US, and they are great for people who want to lose some weight because they are very active. We all know how hyperactive dogs are, and we just love to give them our attention. Interestingly enough, many activities with your dog count as exercise. One of them is walking your dog.
Walking Your Dog
Walking our dogs can be fun for our fur babies and us. However, it’s essential that our dogs walk at least once or twice a day for at least twenty minutes so they can attend to the call of nature. However, did you know that walking your dog counts as a light exercise?
Walking is one of the best ways to maintain weight without exerting too much effort on your body. This daily activity can burn around 50 to 100 calories every thirty minutes. If you want to burn more, you can do brisk walking with your dog, which can burn 100 to 200 calories every thirty minutes. Remember that this increases greatly with your weight, with overweight and obese people burning double the calories.
Playing With Your Dog
Another activity we tend to do every day with our lovely fur babies is playing with them. Because of their hyperactivity, we usually find ourselves chasing after our pets.
There isn’t a set amount of calories for this physical activity. It highly depends on the game you choose to play. For example, playing frisbee with your dog can burn around 270 calories if you do it for thirty minutes. Running with your dog and chasing them around can burn around 300 calories for thirty minutes.
Once again, you burn more when you weigh more. So if you do this activity consistently, you’re burning as many calories as normal exercises in the gym.
Gardening and Landscaping
If you’re the kind of person who loves spending time in their backyard, you can burn a lot of calories by doing gardening and landscaping! They’re fun and very rewarding to do and can make your home look better.
Gardening is considered to be a moderate exercise. It can burn about 150 to 300 calories if you do it for thirty minutes every day. Moreover, studies have shown that it can even have health benefits for your brain. It can decrease the chances of depression and Alzheimer’s, making this an attractive physical activity for those who are reaching seniority.
Gardening is a fun exercise that anyone can do. However, landscaping work can be a great exercise as well! Much like gardening, it’s considered to be light to moderate exercise. It has the potential to become an intense exercise once you start doing the heavy work, such as transferring some heavy rocks from one place to another.
Who knew that working in your backyard could keep you so healthy!
Cleaning
Lastly, we come to cleaning. We all know that cleaning is a very tiring activity, but that’s the main reason it’s considered one of the best physical activities out there.
The simple physical activity of cleaning can burn around 150 calories if you do it for an hour. This also depends entirely on the activity you do. Moving heavy items around the house, such as furniture, can burn twice as many calories.
The Bottomline
Doing simple activities such as the ones we’ve mentioned above can make a difference in your weight and health. If you do these activities consistently, you can burn as many calories as simple exercises in the gym. Another reason what makes these activities so great is that they are free. You don’t need to pay for any membership for these activities or equipment.
It’s important to remember that these activities are fun to do, and they burn a lot more calories depending on your weight. So these activities can drastically reduce your chances of being obese or overweight in the future.
