By Mary Anne Cappellino

Summer Fitness

I Summer provides many of us with the opportunity to spend more time outside due to longer days and nice weather. That extra time outdoors may also help you lose some weight.

The natural tendency in the winter is to curl up indoors and treat ourselves to some comforting foods. But in the summer days you may eat less because you are outside and more active. But even with those longer days in the sun it still takes some effort to get fit. Now that cold and icy winds have given way to warm summer breezes, it’s time to start planning summer fitness activities. Regular exercise is essential to good health and will provide energy and improve the quality of your life.
Here are five tips to get you more active this time of year:

Walk whenever you can. Choose to walk when doing errands within walking distance, instead of driving. Walking provides plenty of fitness benefits and keeps you outside enjoying the weather. The average person will be able to walk a mile in 20 minutes at a normal pace and about 15 minutes if they walk briskly.

Strive for 30 minutes of exercise every day. Get the sneakers on and start today. The benefits of walking are numerous. Walking can reduce your risk of many diseases, from heart attack and stroke to hip fractures. If a fitness walk could be put in a pill, it would be one of the most popular prescriptions in the world.

Ride a bike this summer. Biking is another alternative to driving and can be very invigorating. Just going at a steady pace of 15 mph could get you five miles in about 20 minutes. It’s a great cardiovascular activity while also working your leg muscles.

There are plenty of scenic areas to bike safely, improve fitness and savor the summer outdoors. You can burn as many as 750 to 1,000 calories per hour if the biking is hard and continuous. Most people don't work that hard, and so 500-600 calories is more likely. Your calorie expenditure will vary greatly, depending on whether you're on a stationary or outdoor bike, how hard you work, how efficient your bike is, and other factors.

Swim in the pool. Use the community pool or hang in a friend’s back yard to gain the benefits of swimming three times a week. Swimming is a great exercise. Head to toe, with no impact, it can provide a safe and effective way for you to strengthen and tone with no stress to your bones. Add music and lift knees, jog or simply bounce, making exercising in a pool both fun and beneficial.

Some call swimming the perfect form of exercise. On average, a swimmer can burn as many calories in an hour as a runner who runs six miles in one hour.

Tend to the garden. Gardening is a great alternative to traditional exercise because it incorporates elements of accepted exercise routines while enabling you to engage in an enjoyable activity in the privacy of your own surroundings.

Research shows that gardening for 30-45 minutes most days of the week has significant health benefits, such as decreasing the risk of high blood pressure and diabetes, as well as contributing to healthier bones, muscles and joints. Elements of gardening, such as digging, weeding, trimming shrubs and mowing the lawn, can require the same energy requirements as other physical exercise activities, such as walking, cycling, swimming and aerobics.

Just play more. Engaging in outdoor recreational activities can boost your fitness and also help manage stress. Schedule a round of golf with a friend, shoot baskets in the driveway or gather the group for a backyard game of softball or soccer. An added benefit to these sorts of summer activities is that it also helps to keep you connected with others..

Mary Anne Cappellino is a certified fitness trainer, motivational speaker, lifestyle coach and author of the motivational CD “Think Your Body Fit” in support of exercise and a positive attitude. You can contact Mary Anne at the BAC Eastern Hills location at 631-3800.