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What counts as daily exercise?  Lots of garden work does.  Larry has always said cutting wood was his exercise program.  Have a look at the daily chores that count as exercises.

1/6/2025

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image from thrive.org.uk
      Almost good afternoon.  Temperature at 11:45 AM 15F(-9 C). Partly sunny with a low tonight of 7F( -14C). stay warm.
Australia  weather for Jan 7th which is now.69F( 21C) with cloudy conditions.  They just had that 103F(39C) weather over the weekend.  Stay cool but enjoy these cooler temperatures for January. 
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What counts as exercise?   By Margaret Boyles
I found this article about exercising with the work we do. I do believe this is why our parents and grandparents, if they were farmers, had plenty of exercising with the daily chores with farming.  Give some insight with gardening and taking care of your yard. 
Psychologists call bringing a new perspective “reframing” or “changing the narrative.” Think of daily chores as workouts! Long before I started reframing many of my daily chores as workouts, I’d learned the essentials of aerobic fitness, strength, and flexibility well enough that I knew how to tailor the work at hand to adapt to my current abilities.
I learned those basics in black-iron weight-training gyms, by observing and asking questions of seasoned athletes, getting injured and rehabbing with physical therapy, training for triathlons, and, reading many books and articles.
The Cardinal Rules for Any Exercise
Start slow. Work up to faster, heavier work gradually, over a period of days or weeks, especially if you’re out of shape.
Then, keep it up. Your body “detrains” quickly if you don’t require your muscles to move, lift, and stretch at their current capacity on a regular basis.
Mix it up.
Do 10 to 30 minutes of a job that requires what I call the grunt-work (lifting and hauling, moving heavy stuff around). Lift safely!
Then switch to some huff-’n’-puff work where you work up a sweat (rake leaves or mow the lawn fast).
Then finish off with some work that encourages stretching and bending (hanging laundry, weeding a garden).
Or, alternate the days on which you do various kinds of work. Too long, too hard, or too frequent a spell of a single activity may overwork some muscle-tendon systems, resulting in overuse injuries.
What Counts as Exercise in Everyday Life?
The answer: pretty much anything. Once you get going, you’ll find exercise in surprising places. For me, in my rural environment, I’d include:
Shoveling and spreading mulch around the gardens and berry bushes. A little strength work, a little huff-’n’-puff.
Pruning and hauling brush. Slow aerobics.
Buying groceries. Brisk 1,000 steps around the store, placing items in my cart as I go.
Running up and down stairs putting things away. In a three-story house with a basement, up with only a few items at a time, then down for more.
Splitting and stacking wood. Strength work. Need to have built upper body strength to begin.
Hanging laundry. Stretching and bending.
Mowing the lawn. Yes, a gas-fired power mower, but I take it fast, and our lawn has hills.
Raking leaves (also mopping floors). Put on the headphones and pick up the pace.
Planting/watering vegetables. Good opportunity for stretching.
Hoeing vegetables. Big garden lets me work up a sweat.
Shoveling snow. Grunt-and-groan or work-up-a-sweat work, depending on pace, how deep and heavy the snow is, etc.
Scrubbing floors and windows, vacuuming or sweeping floors.
Like most households, we already have the equipment and supplies required for the work: rakes, shovels, digging forks, pruning tools, hoes, weeders, wheelbarrows, brooms, mops, dusters, and plenty of cleaning rags. Also, a few power tools: a vacuum cleaner and two rototillers.
Reframing your drudgework as exercise won’t win you the hero status you’d get from completing the Hawaii Ironman or hiking the entire Appalachian Trail. But hey, you may come to appreciate those once-dreaded tasks as you build a stronger, faster-moving, more flexible set of muscles while you’re at it.
Taken from https://www.almanac.com/what-counts-exercise
Till next time this is Becky Litterer, Becky’s Greenhouse, Dougherty, Iowa [email protected] 641-794-3337  cell 641-903-9365  
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    Hi! My name is Becky and I am a Master Gardener. I own Becky's Greenhouse in Dougherty, Iowa.

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