Burpees and Calories

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Soon enough it will be the holidays, and we'll be treated to the joys and foods that make holiday celebrations so memorable. With all the festivities come calories and loads of inflammatory foods that our bodies would do better without. But there are some simple disciplines we can put in place to help.

The reality is, our body weight comes down to basic calories-in-calories-out calculations. Our caloric needs change as we age, and it is different for men and women, but to maintain our current weight, our nutritional food intake needs to yield a zero-sum with our activity. If we favor food, we gain weight; if we favor activity, we lose weight.

Try out this great calorie calculator from Mayo Clinic - it shows the estimated calories you need to maintain the weight you are, based on current height, weight, age and activity level.
Click here for the calorie calculator

My Garmin tells me I burn about 2700 calories a day, mainly because I do 40 minutes of functional training on weekdays, and 1-2 hour workout-run sessions on Saturdays and Sundays. On a heavy workout day when I'm also cutting the lawn, that might be a 3500+ calorie day...

The point is, we only need to get our bodies moving to burn some calories. Walking is a great, low-impact activity to burn calories. So it swimming. So are burpees! Burpees are one of the best all-body exercises (arms, core, legs, plus coordination, and aerobic stamina.)

Spartan did a great article a few weeks ago about how many burpees are needed to overcome our less-than-healthy food choices. Check out the article here.

This is a great time of the year to incorporate simple activity disciplines with our healthy eating choices. The foundation we build now will serve us well a few months from now when holiday festivities are everywhere, and that foundation will serve us well for a lifetime.

By the Way

There are innumerable activity calculators that show calories burned with certain activities. Try out one today to see how much activity will get you some good burn. Here's one from www.healthyeater.com  - click here for the calculator.