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Getting and staying fit in the colder months

Posted: Dec 01 in Activity Recommendations, Weight Management Strategies by

Oh my gosh! Winter looks like it’s here! We’re supposed to get three to six inches in the Denver area this morning! Shoot – there goes my exercise for the day, right? If you say this to yourself on days like this, you’re missing the boat.

There are calories to be burned everywhere you look! A quick search on the internet yields numbers worth shaking a snow shovel at! Too icky out there for you? Thirty minutes of house cleaning burns 107 calories! Can’t we all find at least that much that needs doing?

Everybody needs healthy food for cold days! Half an hour of grocery shopping (extra points for the baby on your hip, or the future marathoner you’re chasing all over the store) is 130!

If you do brave the cold and the wind this afternoon, you could burn hundreds of calories doing your civic duty of clearing your sidewalks and the letter carrier’s path to your mailbox. Did you know that shoveling burns 183 -215 calories in just 30 minutes?

OK, so you’re just stuck in your office all day -what can you do for a metabolism boost? Calculate the number of calories you burn in one minute of squats: 1) Multiply your weight by .o96. 22) Multiply that one-minute factor by the number of minutes you spend doing squats. If you weigh 150, X .096=14.4 calories per minute. Just 5 minutes burns 72 calories (disclaimer, this is a lot more work than it looks on paper!).

Even just pacing around your office while you’re taking a call can burn 52 calories in 10 minutes. Have stairs in your building? 10 minutes of stair climbing at 130 lbs burns 160 calories if it’s all up! Only 40 calories for 10 minutes down, though.

The bottom line: There are very few good excuses for us to act like slugs all day, even when the weather outside is frightful!

Happy cold-weather exercising!

Tracy Boykin, RD

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