Today was a lazy day. I didn't feel up for my usual killer treadmill 5k workout, so I loafed on the elliptical instead. Then I jumped on a leg press, did a dip/squat exercise for my ever-healing achilles, dropped down for 22 push-ups and half a dozen 30 second planks, then stretched and called it a morning. But even a loafing workout felt good.

I was on a healthy roll, so I bought a tilapia fillet and grilled it for lunch with a bunch of steamed brussel sprouts. Okay, now I was really dancing a healthy number. Unfortunately, my healthy day screeched to a halt when I started baking a quadruple-layered chocolate cake for a carnival cakewalk we're attending tomorrow. I just had to lick the giant beater, and part of the bowl, too. If you have any tips on how to avoid this temptation, please do share. Trouble really kicked in as I was halfway done frosting the cake ... my mind and stomach were screaming for a creamy milk chocolate sugar fix. It was at that point I ran out of frosting -- I'm telling you, this cake is huge -- and thank goodness for the timely rescue.

I had two choices. Jump in the car and go buy the frosting or walk three-quarters of a mile to the store to buy the frosting. I was feeling bad enough about my healthy day gone bad, so I chose the walk. It was a fantastic 40 minute brisk walk along the sidewalk. I wasn't only walking for the cakewalk, I was walking for me. To make up for my cake batter frenzy, to make myself feel better physically and mentally. It worked. It put me in a stable frame of mind so when I also walked-thru our bank's ATM drive-thru on the way home, I didn't feel too stupid when a car pulled up behind me. According to AOL Body's convenient Calories Burned Calculator, I burned 138 calories on the trip -- enough to offset that luscious cake batter. Frighteningly, my kids are saying if they win at the cakewalk tomorrow, they're choosing the quadruple-layered chocolate cake. I may be facing this monster tomorrow night.

Source

After a few warm days and some sunshine, I was amazed today when I strolled through my yard. Plants that had just been sprouting a mere week ago are now nearly a foot tall. Unfortunately, half of those plants are weeds and I have my work cut out for me. If you have a yard like mine -- large and untamed -- many of your spring weekends may be spent in the yard or garden. You may also wonder, like I often do, if gardening counts as exercise.

If I was keeping track of my daily activity on a calories burned calculator, I'd enter in gardening for sure. In my yard, it means heavy-duty digging, hauling heavy bags of mulch, digging up and moving large plants, and trimming and hauling away big branches. You can burn about 350 calories per hour doing that sort of work -- not too bad! The other great thing about gardening, for me, is that I can easily spend 4 hours working out in the yard, and I'd never commit that kind of time to a workout.

So, while gardening isn't a planned and focused "workout," it certainly can cut calories from your day and put plenty of activity back in. But you need to be realistic about how much you're really doing. If you're holding a hose or pulling a few weeds and not breaking a sweat, it's not exercise. But if you're bending and stretching, sweating and out of breath...then you're getting a workout of sorts. To find out exactly how many calories you're burning, check out this calculator that measures calories burned by the minute.

Source