Gardening for fitness and weight loss

-

If you're like me, and most people, doing boring repetitive exercise for fitness and weight loss is just awful. Walking on a treadmill is something that I'd only do if it was some type of punishment, and I had no choice. Someone would have to stand next to me, forcing me, saying something like "we have a failure to communicate". But getting your body moving is the best thing that you can do for fitness and weight loss, and one of the things that I dearly love to do is to take care of my garden.

Now calm down here, I'm not running laps around my garden, I'm just doing the regular small maintenance that it needs. I'm not chopping down redwoods, or hauling firewood, I'm simply moving gently. Today I trimmed some fountain grass, and it meant sustained movement for about a half-hour, including bending, stretching, and some carrying. I filled two large garbage bags. In addition to the movement, it got me away from the computer, where I'm sitting right now, and spend WAY too much time on. And of course it gave me something to think about instead of my next meal. Hmmm... some eggs sound good!

In a longish life I've seen mostly people always jump to extremes. They're either "couch potatoes" or they've taken up bungee jumping. Those extremes have never been for me. I get bored too easily to be much of a couch potato, and I have too much of a fear of death to go bungee jumping. There's a LOT in between!

After this particular workout, I'm evaluating how I feel. The sustained movement was the key, so I'll give myself credit for aerobics (most people call it cardio nowadays, but it's really the same thing in practice). My heart wasn't racing, and I wasn't gasping for breath, but after I was finished, I felt like sitting down, and having some coffee. I can feel it a bit in my lower back (of course), and my legs.

I can't measure how much weight I lost while trimming my fountain grass, it's just part of a total that adds up, and improves my fitness. It's good to keep moving! A beautiful garden is a side-effect. Or maybe it's the fitness that's a side-effect? It doesn't matter to me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing sunflowers from Pennsylvania in Arizona

-
Image
It's October 21st, and I just received some sunflower seeds from a friend in Pennsylvania. Their season is ending and the season for planting here in Arizona is just beginning, and I'm kinda wondering if the seeds are wondering what's going on? It's spring again already? If you're new to the Phoenix, Arizona area, and are from back east it must seem kinda strange that fall and winter is our flower season, but it is. By springtime it will start to get so hot here that the flowers will die, and of course back east the season is just beginning.  Sunflowers growing in Peoria, Arizona, about a mile from where I live I've seen sunflowers blooming around my neighborhood of Glendale, which is a suburb of Phoenix, in the winter, and although I've never grown them I understand that they're easy to grow. I guess I'll find out - I learn best by doing! The seeds arrived safely, and it's my understanding that they were still connected to the spent flower (I do
Read more

How to tell if your cycad (sago palm) is alive or dead

-
Image
Cycads are strange plants. They're beautiful, and look like small palm trees, or large ferns. They grow very slowly, and can be very expensive, even common ones like "sago palms". But sago palms, in spite of their common name, aren't palms at all. They belong to a group of plants called cycads. They are wonderfully weird, and grow in strange ways. And sometimes they lose all of their leaves. Of course, if it were a palm tree that lost all of its leaves, you would know that the plant was dead. But it's not true of cycads. So don't dig that cycad up and throw it away! Not yet. If you've recently transplanted a cycad, and the leaves have all faded away, hang on. Take a look at the top center of the plant, at what I call "the pucker". There you will see some stubby, soft fronds, no more than an half-inch or so. At least that's what you should see. That means that the plant is still alive, and has dropped its leaves to focus on building r
Read more

Rooting sago palm pups for more plants

-
Image
Once a sago palm ( cycas revoluta ) reaches a certain level of maturity, it starts to create pups. Like agaves, these are little plants that are exactly the same as the parent plant, only smaller. And yes, you can trim them off and grow them into new plants. This is how to do it. Cut them off from the parent plant with a sharp knife. If there are any roots at the bottom, try to save them, but chances are there won't be any. That's not a problem. The next step is rooting them. Douse the cut part and the bottom of the plant with some garden sulfur and some rooting hormone powder. Rooting hormone powder is pretty easy to find at your local Home Depot. I had to go to a real nursery to get garden sulfur. Anyway, the idea is to keep the little plant from rotting while giving it time to grow its own roots. Sago palm pups being rooted Bury them fairly deep in some free-draining mix. It should include volcanic pumice, if you can find it, and if not, you can use perlite. I
Read more