Gardening totally counts as a form of exercise. You’re out there in the yard tending to the food you’re growing to feed your family while bending and lifting stuff. As you kneel down to weed the garden or flowers out in your yard, your body is moving.

This movement is called physical activity and it’s one of the lower forms of physical activity that is called exercise. As you continue to move around your yard to tend to the garden, you’ll find that you start to feel more energetic, happy, and fit.

This is because gardening is indeed a form of exercise and exercise helps make your body, mind, and soul happier.

Can Gardening Help you Lose Weight?

While there are no conclusive studies, it’s been shown that most people who engage in gardening work regularly are able to lose some weight. This could be on conjunction with a healthier diet, such as consuming the food that they’re growing plus the physical activity of gardening.

In time you’ll find that you either maintain a healthy weight or start to shed some inches because you’re being active outside and moving around which will help shed some pounds.

Here are some gentle movements you can use during your time gardening to help increase weight loss during your daily gardening routine:

Lunge and Weed

Consider doing your lunges while you’re wedding. You can look online for the proper lunge stance, but it essentially includes having one leg bent at the knee while the other is stretched out and you bend forward.

Sometimes lunges are used in conjunction with dumbbells for extra toning, but you can use lunges to stretch and work the muscles in your legs as well as arms while you’re outside weeding the garden.

Increase Range of Motion

Be exaggerative in your movements during your daily gardening activities. This will help you increase your range of motion and burn more calories while you’re doing your daily chores. Consider using the larger muscles while you’re outside gardening, too.

This will help you shed some inches and weight off the waistline as you continue to use gardening as part of your daily exercise routine.

Having a home garden is a fabulous way to feed your family for the long term and be reliable on yourself. Finding new ways to be self-sufficient while you’re building muscle tone and losing fat is a fantastic opportunity for anyone out there!

We hope that you’ll use these tips to use gardening as a form of exercise in your everyday life as you work towards living a more self-sufficient lifestyle.