Question:
We only get a few months of nice weather where I live. I love to work out in the yard when it's warm. The thing is, I don't have time to go to the gym and work in the garden
Does yard work count as exercise?
Answer:
The short answer is yes, every type of physical activity you engage in "counts." That is, it requires you to use your muscles and expend energy, so it benefits. But that's only part of the story.
My fancier answer, would be based on what your fitness goals are.
If you are interested in a basic level of overall fitness
The textbook definition of fitness is to have the capacity to perform daily activities and have a little left over for emergencies. So by the book, you are fit if you have the energy and strength to complete daily activities, and enough left over to respond to the unexpected - like if you have to run from an attacking cheetah. Or rush onto the subway before the doors close. Or catch up with the ice cream truck. If you're doing gardening in the summer and you have a desk job, then the gardening is an activity that requires you to build more strength than what you need to complete your regular tasks. That's good.
If your goal is to lose weight
If your goal is to lose weight, it gets a little more complicated. Not like quantum physics complicated, but maybe like geometry complicated or algebra complicated.
The basic formula for weight loss is: (number of calories ingested) - (number of calories expended)= potential weight gain or weight loss. For example, if you eat 1800 calories in a day, and only engage in 1500 calories worth of activity, you'll have something like this:
1800 calories eaten - 1500 spent on activity = 300 extra calories.
Your body must do something with these extra calories. As a rule, it will take them and put them into a little vault known as fat storage. Those calories now become part of your body weight and they will stay there until your calorie formula goes into a deficit as in:
1700 calories eaten - 2000 calories spent on activity = (negative 300 calories).
Your body must get those extra calories from somewhere. Just like when you're out of money and you go to the bank and withdraw some, your body goes into fat storage, and gets that extra energy, which had previously been stored as fat.
The reason I bring all of this up is because you will need to determine whether your yard work is sufficient to keep you in a calorie deficit. For example, a 160-pound person will burn about 250 calories an hour performing general gardening tasks like digging, filling, etc. That's about the same as a light general one-hour workout at the gym. However, you're probably spending more than an hour at a time in the garden - both because you love it and because it just takes a long time.
As far as calories burned goes, you might make out better working in the garden for the afternoon. Of course, if you are used to more rigorous workouts at the gym, you might break even, which is still a good deal because you get to be out in the fresh air doing something you love.
If your gardening sessions are not putting you into the same calorie deficit as your workouts, then you will need to adjust your nutrition accordingly. Cut back a little here and there. This could be a challenge - I get very hungry when I do yard work!
This scenario only takes calories burned into account. Your gardening activity won't result in much cardiovascular conditioning unless you're doing some heavy-duty wood-chopping or plowing.
If you want to build muscle
If your goal is to build muscle, gardening will certainly challenge you by requiring you to use specific muscles (such as those required to stoop, squat, bend, and yank), but again, unless you're doing a lot of tilling, or hauling boulders, gardening won't help you put on much muscle mass.
I live Western New York, and we have some long, hard winters. So I understand the need to be out in nature when the weather allows it; I think gardening is good for the soul. The way to get the best of both worlds might be to blend the activities. For instance, spend one day working in the garden, and then the next day go for a short run or a longer walk outside. Take your bike out and go for a ride to a nearby park. Alternate your gardening activities with some cardio, and try to get into the gym twice a week for a 45-minute weight training session. Then when winter rolls around again, you'll still be on course toward your weight loss goals, and you won't have to start your strength conditioning from scratch due to lack of muscle use.
In strength,
Julie
Julie Scipioni McKown is a certified personal trainer and a fitness consultant.
Julie's e-book, Body Wizardry: Releasing the Champion Within is now available for the Kindle ebook reader. Don't have a Kindle? Get yours here.
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Add a Comment4 Comments
I agree with the comment alysiak made about plateauing due to a caloric intake that never changes. In fact, I think I'll write an article about some ways you can shake that up a bit, in general.
I also highly suspect that there is another reason some women can't burn off those last 10 pounds: Unrealistic expectations. It is vital to look at what your goals are, and to make sure that they are reasonable for you, for your body, and for your life.(Translation: It is possible that you don't need to lose those 10 pounds.)
On most charts that tell you what you "should" weigh, I frequently log in at 10+ pounds overweight, which I definitely am not.
One problem is that some of those charts are created by people or companies who sell weight loss programs or products. (Think they have any investment in making you believe you need to lose 10 pounds?) They also often fail to take muscle mass, body frame size, and other factors into consideration.
And of course, the media doesn't help. Sometimes when I watch reruns of "Friends," I feel compelled to ship Courtney Cox a sandwich. Real women don't have ribs showing.
Some women DO need to lose 10 pounds (or more), but the number on the scale is arbitrary; it always has to be considered holistically as part of an overall fitness strategy that is based in reality, that is healthy, and that allows you to have the quality of life you want, among other things.
In strength,
Julie
http://www.BodyWizards.com
June 18, 2008 - 4:20pmThe Power to Build your Ideal Body
This Comment
Somewhere, I found counts of calories burned for the type of yard work done. This isn't the chart I had in mind, but ]]>here's one]]>.
It takes energy to pull weeds, dig holes to plant pansies, spread landscape mix, roll out the hose, water said pansies, lol!
My personal take on why it takes so many women to lose those last few pounds is twofold: the body has plateaued at its fat burning efficiency level and you need to up the caloric intake and change up the exercise to trick the body into more fat burn. I also think that too many people get bored with their dietary regimens and start slipping in the stuff they had deprived themselves of for a long time. Deprivation doesn't work; reworking your favorite foods does.
JMHO
June 16, 2008 - 4:21pmThis Comment
These are the kinds of articles I love to read. First, they validate my love of both burning off calories and getting something productive done around the house.
The second is, it reminds me of my uncle who owned and worked his own farm for decades. Every morning, he'd get up and eat the kind of breakfast that people would make a cardiologist cringe -- bacon, fried eggs, toast with lots of butter, coffee with real cream -- not a fruit or vegetable in site. But the great thing was he worked on the farm all day, moving hay, tending to animals, fixing equipment, etc. and I don't think he was ever more than 10 pounds overweight. While I certainly can't advocate his eating habits, I think he was spot on when it came to burning off all of his less-than-healthy meals by his physical activity on the farm.
Speaking of 10 pounds -- a question -- why do so many women have such a hard time burning off those last few pounds? Some swear to me, they're eating like birds ...
June 16, 2008 - 3:45pmThis Comment
Ha, I wish we could drop that expression from the language! Whose grandmother didn't tell them "You eat like a little bird!". Have you ever had a pet bird, or watched the birds at your feeder? They are ravenous (ah, a bird reference!) and eat more than you would ever guess, and are very competitive. So, if your friends say they are eating like a bird, maybe they are telling the truth!
May 6, 2018 - 2:13pmThis Comment