A Day In The Garden… That’s NEAT!

With my work done for the day (it’s never done, but) I sat down to eat my lunch and decide on what I should do with my afternoon. And with our house about to be put up for sale, I decided that doing something that would give the house a fresher feel would be a good start. Certainly a better start than watching Steph’s Packed Lunch all afternoon!

Hmm. But where to begin? I had a timing issue here. I had to begin something that I could finish before I picked the kids up from school, so painting their rooms, a job that will need doing, wasn’t going to happen today.

So as I placed my empty dish in the kitchen sink and looked out of the window, my answer was right there in the garden.

I’m no green fingered gardener. My wife is responsible for the pretty things that grow out there. But I’m pretty good at ripping things up and tearing things down. And at the side of the garage was a huge big tree like climber that I had been meaning to wrestle for some time. In fact I trimmed it down a year ago after the neighbours complained that it had started to grow inside their part of the garage.

I must admit, any day that I miss training at the gym I feel guilty. I can reason with myself, however, when I consider my NEAT activities. I have explained NEAT previously in my articles, but a brief summary of this is the Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. Any movement that you do outside of your usual training schedule is classed as NEAT. This can be from breathing, walking and, well, ripping down trees.

I’m confident that I remain quite active even away from the gym. Barring a couple of hours on an evening watching a football game or a movie then I am rarely sedentary. Therefore, my NEAT is alright.

And it’s amazing how tough a day in the garden can be! When my wife and I begin to plant seeds for vegetables or create new wildlife areas during spring time I have muscle soreness that most gym exercises don’t produce. This makes it just as good a calorie burner as a steady paced treadmill run for an hour.

So the bottom line here is don’t despair if you haven’t made the gym today. There’s lots of stuff you can do to keep you going.