Lawn Mowing For Weight Loss January 20, 2006
Just for kicks, I thought I’d wear my heart rate monitor today while I mowed the lawn. I was a little surprised to find out what good exercise it was!
According to the monitor, it took me 30 minutes to mow the lawn (including sweeping up the driveway afterwards), and 26:18 of that was within my target heart rate zone. My average heart rate was 137 (it’s usually around 120-125 when walking), and I burned 462 calories. Pushing and pulling the mower and sweeping use a lot of upper-body muscles, so I’m getting a bit of variety in the workout. With benefits like these, it looks like I won’t be procrastinating on mowing the lawn anymore!
No wonder I’ve never seen a fat lawn mowing contractor.
It now seems strange that so many people pay others to mow their lawn, and then pay to visit the gym for a workout!
Using A Heart Rate Monitor January 9, 2006
Another good walk this morning with G.
According to the heart rate monitor, I burned 441 calories this time. The monitor is really good for letting you know when you need to put in a bit more effort to keep your heart rate up, rather than just strolling along and taking it easy. I can feel it in my muscles afterwards – I’m definitely walking harder and making better use of my exercise time. I figure, if you’re putting in the time anyway, you may as well get the most out of it you can!
Never Trust 4-Year-Olds January 8, 2006
I finally got back into the morning walking routine. I took G with me this morning, and decided to walk a little further than usual (about 45 minutes instead of 30). Partly it was because I had just gotten a new heart rate monitor and wanted to see how it worked, and partly it was to make up for all the missed exercise sessions this week.
About 3/4 of the way around my chosen walking route, I noticed that G was missing a shoe. Damn, she must have kicked it off somewhere along the walk! Nothing for it but to back-track (my route is a loop, so I was coming home via different streets to where the shoe was dropped).
So, I backtracked. I walked and walked, and there was no sign of the shoe. I was beginning to think it must have been picked up by someone, or that maybe I’d missed it again. I got all the way back home and found it in front of my neighbour’s house! Oh well, at least I had a good long walk!
According to the heart monitor, I burned 562 calories with 55% of that being classified as fat-burning. That means I burned around 309 calories of fat. Not bad!