April Showers Bring May Flowers And Baggy Pants If You Go Outside And Play

Spring is officially here! Yippee! The urge to "go outside and play" taunts me from my home office at least ten times a day. I imagine being able to take the afternoon off and garden, not that I'm Greta Green Thumb. I'm not.

Last season, I killed six tomato plants, stunted the growth of an entire row of sweet peas and yet somehow managed to grow a 2 foot tall head of romaine lettuce and a cucumber. Neither of which were edible. I haven't the faintest idea what I'm doing out there but I love being in the garden.

I figured out early on that outdoor gardening was a delicious break from indoor dumbbells. By the end of last summer, I had some pretty mean biceps, my abdominal muscles were in their best shape ever, lower backaches were a thing of the past and I was more limber than I'd been in years.

Gardening is an excellent way to build muscle, increase your stamina, work out muscles you never knew you had, work out frustrations you've always known you had and a great way to relax and "get away."

A recent study highlighted in the National Women's Health Report revealed that "only weight training was better than yard work as an activity most highly associated with reducing risk for osteoporosis."

Even a five minute walk through my garden is enough to refocus me when I'm feeling super stressed out. "Psychiatrists and physical therapists both agree that gardening is an excellent way to relieve mental stress and get good exercise at the same time." Digging holes, vigorous raking, and chopping wood are excellent ways to work out pent up stress. But such strenuous tasks may not be called for in the garden as often as your stress level requires modification.

Out with weeds, in with blossoms
Dr. Dale Atkins suggests attaching additional meaning to the task of weeding. "When you're weeding, imagine yourself weeding all your troubles out of your life. Let each weed symbolize something in your life that's not serving you. As you build up the soil and nurture the plants, imagine that same care and prep work being applied to goals you've set for yourself. When you imagine the blooms that are forthcoming, imagine yourself reaching your goals."

Weed away your woes and whittle away unwanted pounds too. 182 calories per half hour adds up to weight loss fast!

Healthy Hobbies, Healthy Weight Loss
It was pretty cold this weekend. I had absolutely no intention of spending it outdoors but my mother and father dropped off a flat of beautiful pansies Saturday morning. The little kid in me desperately wanted to plant them right away. But the homeowner in me surveyed the yard. It was a horrible mess unworthy of totally gorgeous young pansies thoughtfully delivered by my Mom and Dad.

Last year's leaves were no longer covered up by mountains of snow. They were strewn about the yard several inches thick as if to mock me and expose my dirty little secret of never having actually completed my well intended, fall clean-up. I really meant to finish up the yard duties last year but it got so cold, so fast! I hate being cold. When the temperature dipped below the temperature of the dip in my fridge, my attention turned to the home and hearth, to my kitchen and cooking.

Cardio Blast
Nesters never prosper. I spent the first weekend of spring cleaning up after last fall. I filled ten giant leaf bags with last year's leaves, pine needles and twigs. Ten minutes into my spring tidy, I was huffing and puffing harder than the big bad wolf trying to blow down the little pig's house made of bricks.

Burn off a giant bowl of ice cream in an hour! Raking leaves burns up to 352 calories every 60 minutes. That's 1 3/4 glazed Krispy Kreme donuts, a small bagel with some of the cream cheese, a "normal" slice of cake or a King size candy bar. Not bad for an hour's work in a gorgeous setting.

Fat Free Trimmings, Fat Free You
I trimmed all of the dead "wood" off the bushes that seemed like they needed me to do that. Whether or not you're actually supposed to cut all the dead looking stuff off of all your plants is beyond me but who has time to run to the garden center every five minutes asking whether or not the little dead looking bush next to the other dead looking bush should be trimmed of all its dead looking stuff?

I don't even know the names of most of my plants but I'm having a lot of fun trying to figure it out. I buy garden books and try to match my plants to their pictures. Comparing my Charlie Brown Christmas tree like specimens to the showstoppers on the pages of gardening books is tough at best. Not many garden books show scraggly looking plants with brown leaves and just a few blooms or no blooms at all so it's hard to know if the plants in my garden are what I think they are.

184 calories burned for every 30 minutes spent trimming and pruning is a pretty good payoff!

Dig In!
The squirrels didn't eat all of the bulbs I planted last fall so I pretended I knew what I was doing when I spread bone marrow around all of the surviving bulbs. Someone told me this was a good idea. I had to mix it into the top soil which was rock hard from its long winter's nap. This required a little vigorous digging and some precarious bending and twisting.

Next, I went through every square inch of my flower beds by hand, picking up the remaining leaves that had somehow escaped my rake. I pulled out a few dandelion weeds and lots of un-dandelion looking weeds too. I'll never know if they were perennials or weeds. They're in yard bags next to the trash cans. You can't fret over these things when you're new to gardening. Focus on the positive. I figure I got a year's worth of stretching in just a few hours.

Who knew you could burn off 2 whole slices of coconut cream pie (about 400 calories) after just one little old hour of digging?

Soul Food
I've learned soil needs to be nourished in the spring so I bought a giant block of peat moss and broke it up with a hand rake. I transferred it into a giant bucket and spread it evenly over the beds. I was told I had to work the peat moss into the top layer of soil so I started at one end of the garden and tilled and raked until the peat moss was sufficiently worked into the soil. I only mangled a half dozen tulip looking bulbs not yet in bloom.

The sun was beginning to set and though it was sunny, it was still barely 40 degrees outside. My hands were too cold to continue. My body ached. I spent the last 15 minutes I had in me, planting the pansies my Mom and Dad sent over.

I spent this morning crooked over my cereal bowl gazing out the window at my new pansies. I limped back over to the table at lunch time and sat in the chair with the best view. I took extra long pulling in and out of the driveway on my way to the physical therapist so I could admire them some more. I'm kidding about the physical therapist! I'm a little sore from all the garden yoga but I'm looking forward to getting my body and my garden into great shape this season!

* Note: Calorie calculations based on a 5'5" tall 180 pound woman. For more calorie calculations, log on to caloriesperhour.com

April's Homework Assignment:

1. Non Gardeners, Go Outside and Play. Challenge yourself to work more outdoor activities into your life starting this month. I live in <brr> cold Michigan. If I can be outdoors this time of year, so can you.
   
   Choosing an outdoor physical activity that can reduce stress, burn calories, build strength, endurance and flexibility is critically important especially for people trying to break through a plateau or to lose weight. Ideally, this activity should be in addition to your normal exercise routine.
   
   I see you rolling your eyeballs. Springtime is glorious. It's a wonderful time of year to be outdoors. There's just no excuse for staying in. Think of how you'll reinvigorate weight loss with even 15 minutes more of physical activity a day.
   
   
2. Gardener Wannabes, Greta Green Thumbs & Lawn Lovers, Make Mud Pies. Commit to gardening or at the very least, a little yard work. My neighbor doesn't do any outside yard work. "It's not my thing." I don't have to mow my own lawn either. The neighborhood is full of kids looking to earn extra money. I do it because it's a way to stay active. It's a way to relieve stress. It's a break from working out in a gym. It's a way to work muscles I never knew I had! Mostly, it's a way to "go outside and play."

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