I tell myself this life I lead is active enough without added exercise. Then again, would I be looking like this if it were enough? I feed cows in the morning with a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow. It ends up being about 35 loads of heavy silage delivered in the wheelbarrow. It takes a good hour and 15 minutes and I clip along at a pretty good pace. It's a lot heavy lifting and fast paced walking. I also pitch out silage with a fork from a manger in the morning--about 3 good skidsteer buckets full. I tell myself I don't really have time for more exercise than that...but then again I am sitting here typing this, so maybe I should be doing a situp or two instead. I hate formal exercise. Hate it, hate it. I don't mind picking it up accidentally, but I hate structured sweating. Think I'm doing enough for a healthy lifestyle?

Don't worry about adding extra exercise UNLESS YOU WANT TO!

Check out this article on the lack of weight loss when you exercise....

"There was a time when virtually no one believed exercise would help a person lose weight. Until the sixties, clinicians who treated obese and overweight patients dismissed the notion as naïve. When Russell Wilder, an obesity and diabetes specialist at the Mayo Clinic, lectured on obesity in 1932, he said his fat patients tended to lose more weight with bed rest, “while unusually strenuous physical exercise slows the rate of loss.”

The problem, as he and his contemporaries saw it, is that light exercise burns an insignificant number of calories, amounts that are undone by comparatively effortless changes in diet. In 1942, Louis Newburgh of the University of Michigan calculated that a 250-pound man expends only three calories climbing a flight of stairs—the equivalent of depriving himself of a quarter-teaspoon of sugar or a hundredth of an ounce of butter. “He will have to climb twenty flights of stairs to rid himself of the energy contained in one slice of bread!” Newburgh observed. So why not skip the stairs, skip the bread, and call it a day."

http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/

The real question is: Active enough for what? If you want to be 'active enough' to keep your heart healthy (cardio), active enough to lose inches and body fat, and/or active enough to keep bones and muscles growing and strong -- you need to do formal weight-training.

Luckily, you can achieve all three goals in less than an hour a week. That's less than 1 hour - per week. And yes, that's not a typo. I work out 40 minutes per week, and am on my way down to 30 minutes.

Check out The Super Slow Revolution on Amazon, or at your library. It works. It has all the exercises you need to do at a gym - or at home. It's co-written by the Drs. Eades - so it's very low carb friendly.

In one way it's the 'easiest' work-out you'll ever do. In another, it's easily the most intense work-out you'll ever do. I love it. In ten weeks I've built-up muscle and strength like never before - while really revving up body fat loss. My 'oxygen saturation' test was done last week - it's 100% - an athlete's result.

Lisa

An hour and 15 minutes of pushing a wheelbarrow and forking out silage every day should be plenty of exercise.

That kind of workout is probably more activity than a lot of peoples workouts. I say if you hate 'formal' exercise don't do it. You will resent it and be unhappy.

I would certainly think so! Simply because exercise accomplishes something useful -- like getting work done -- doesn't mean it isn't exercise!

Mumbo, I was raised on a farm and did a lot of what you're talking about. By the time I was 14 I could carry 4-5 gallon pails of chop to the steers all the way out the barn and into their corral. There was lots of bales to load and throw off, etc.etc. I know exactly what type of exercie you're talking about. Believe me, *nothing* I do at the gym even comes close to that! you're already getting more exercise than 90% of us on this forum. (now, I feel like I need to up my weights at the gym today!) Oh, and another point. I did that *everyday*. I assume you are too.

I have been far heavier than this in my life. I think I tipped the scales at 222, and then I quit weighing myself, so I am sure I was far heavier than the highest reading I dared to look at. I do see the pounds creeping back on me, and I think it is from poor food choices and lazy eating habits more than from a lack of activity....but then again, I fear that I just may not want to sweat! When we started farming, I was very thin, but couldn't have pushed a loaded wheelbarrow to save my soul. Now I could (and often have) chase a beef heifer two miles without tiring--I couldn't run 3 miles to save my soul, but I could do it to save the neighbors corn! I will never be bikini (or even tankini) slim. Besides, no one wants to see these vericose veins uncovered. I do want to be heart healthy, and I want to avoid the osteoporosis that seems to afflict the women in my family. I want to feel comfortable. It's not that where I am right now is horrible, but I don't want to wake up and find myself not daring to get on the scale again, and I want to be strong as I age.

Thanks for all the input, guys. I feel a lot better about trying to pick up exercise on the sly. Who knows, I may even try a damn situp today

Yeah, every day. I'd like to breed a cow with a spigot on its udder, but until then, I think it'll be this way for a while. lol!

Yeah, no kidding! LOLOL

I used to work for a building contractor; pulling, hauling, lifting, walking/running, climbing, you name it - 8 hrs/day.

During one particular physical, the doc told me work didn’t count as exercise.

Hu-wha? Like my body can tell the dif between intentional exercise and work related exercise??

I suspect you're getting more than most!

LOLOL

Was he getting kickbacks from a local gym or something?

There is just no comparison. People always think I'm special because I run and swim regularly and I'm like, NOTHING makes up for 8 hours at a desk. NOTHING!!!

Janine

i hear ya there! im stuck at a desk too, and it makes me tired! its hard to hit the gym after work! i had more energy when i was busting my ass waiting tables and bartending!

I've needed more damage control, physio, etc, and have had more muscle damage from sitting at a desk then I ever had during the years I did hard physical labor.
Our bodies are meant to be used.