My Crohnstipated Life

Anyone who’s watching their weight knows that one of the sure-fire ways of staying trim is to burn calories – as many as possible.  Every calorie counts, and when you burn more calories by increasing your activity level, you’re doing your muscles and heart good as well.  Even a little bit of exercise and activity counts, and they all add up for burning calories.

Do plies or lunges while you’re doing your teeth.  You should brush your teeth for two minutes twice a day to look after them properly, so that’s four minutes in which you can tone your legs a little.  How many can you do?  If you’re into belly dance, then try shimmying non-stop while brushing your teeth – this one really burns the calories!

Balance on a ball.  If you know you’re going to be desk-bound for the day working on a tight deadline, then switch your regular chair for one of those big exercise balls.  Sitting upright on one of these will really work your core muscles.  And make sure you get up and stretch for two minutes every half hour or so – you’ll be more productive for it and avoid a lot of RSI problems.

Ditch the remote control – get up off your chair to change channels or alter the volume or whatever. 

Don’t sit on a chair at all to watch TV– lie on the floor.  You’ll change position frequently to get comfy.  And while you’re down there, it’s easier to just do a few sit-ups, leg lifts or bridges during ad breaks.

Making love burns plenty of calories if you get into one of the more demanding positions – any of the woman-on-top ones gives your legs, abdomen and thighs a good workout.  The only difficulty can come if your man has also had this advice and is also trying to get into one of the positions to give him a good workout.  Actually, this contesting and wrestling for position could be fun…

Prepare your own meals.  Not only will you have more control of the fat, sugar, starch and salt going into your meal, all that chopping, stirring and grating burns a few of those calories in anticipation.  You can probably whip up a salad or soup in less time than it takes for the pizza delivery to arrive.

If you’ve got kids, play with them more.  A game of tag or whatever is great quality time and gets you – and them – more active.

Time Management is key.  Use the time spent waiting for the coffee machine for doing a few exercises.  How about jogging on the spot or lifting weights using whatever’s handy in the kitchen as hand weights.

Strap on the weights.  If you already go for a walk, use leg weights to increase your load and burn even more calories as you go.  Or just carry a bit water bottle to sip on as you go – one liter of water weighs a kilo.