Let Your Work Be Your Workout

It’s been SO WARM here, with temps in the 80’s for several days in a row, then we got a couple of inches of rain on Thursday night which brought through a cool front and we’re down to temps in the 60’s which is PERFECT for doing outdoor work!

I worked out in the garden for 3 consecutive hours yesterday.  After the rain from the night before the ground was soft and pliable which is the best kind of ground for picking and digging up weeds, I removed several annoying overgrown burdock plants and weeded all of my garden plots where things are currently planted, during the gardening season I am always careful to time my weeding after a good rain shower for optimal effect.

I also hand dug a 20’x4′ potato plot (I had previously removed the sod a couple of months ago) and planted 10 more pounds of seed potatoes in addition to the 10 pounds that were planted last week.  Also planted a couple hundred more pea seeds (green peas, sugar snap and snow peas), and radish, lettuce, turnip, and parsnip seeds.

here are pictures of some of the garden plots that I worked on yesterday

I LOVE getting out in the dirt and working hard!  As far as I am concerned, there is no better way to get exercise!  Your body gets stronger, the land is properly cared for and you get delicious healthful food in the process…and that’s a win-win situation as far as I’m concerned! 😀

Our bodies were made to endure slow steady moderate exercise for extended periods of time.  Things like working the soil by hand, hand milking animals and tending them, drawing and carrying buckets of water, weeding and harvesting the field, and even everyday chores like sweeping the floor or hanging clothes on the line or standing at a sink and washing dishes by hand or dusting the furniture, or recreational hobbies like walking through the woods and taking pictures of the blossoming Spring, ALL of these things are slow work requiring easy to moderate effort.  This is the type of work that the body was made for, that the body THRIVES under.  There is no need for extreme amounts of high intensity exercise which is just going to shock your muscles and stress your joints and bones, thereby making you age faster.

Work to live and let your work be your workout.

According to Fitday.com’s activity tracker I burned 773 calories doing 3 hours of gardening yesterday.  I got exercise and soon I will be reaping the benefits of all that hard work in the form of FREE ORGANIC FOOD.  I’m not wasting any time at all counting crunches or doing jumping jacks like a kid in PE Class or running in place like a hamster on a wheel, but instead I am redeeming the time spent, getting a multi-fold return on my work…you just can’t go wrong when you let your work be your workout! 🙂

here is a screen capture of what I ate yesterday and the total calories, carbs, fat and protein at the bottom of the picture

I always start my day with a cup of coffee with goat’s milk and no sugar…

About midday, I had a salad with sausage and hardboiled eggs and some raisins (I like that bit of sweetness in my salad) dressed with a homemade oil and vinegar dressing using bacon grease, olive oil and raw apple cider vinegar and lots of salt and freshly ground pepper.

Later on in the day, after all my gardening work was completed, I had some olives and goat cheese with a beer.

Then for dinner we had roasted pork tenderloin and homemade creamed greens and I had a beer with that too…

And that was that, not much else to tell.  I had no cravings to speak of and was quite satisfied with the amount of work I did and the food eaten.  All in all, a good day! 😀