Bums and tums….get fitter while cooling the planet

With all this talk about slimming your carbon footprint (if you missed it, I'm talking about a new book that shows you how to cut your carbon calories) let’s not forget how the eco-friendly lifestyle helps you achieve a svelte figure. I’ve been counting the ways:

* First, the obvious: cycling or walking to work or legging it to catch the bus. Immediate fitness.
* There’s also energy-saving measures like turning down the thermostat. Your body has to work harder to keep warm in a cooler house, burning more calories.
* Then there’s extra trips to flick off stand-by buttons and fill the kettle every time you finish the meagre amount of water you allowed yourself to boil.
* When it comes to cleaning, it’s lemon juice and vinegar all the way for greenies. And while I wouldn’t want to diminish their powers, there’s no doubt that you have to put some elbow grease into it to get your bathtub sparkling. (On this one, I’d go further and suggest that we can probably chart our national disposition for bingo wings, those unwelcome fleshy extensions to our upper arms, to a growing dependence on super strength ‘spray and wipe’ cleaning products that shift grime so effortlessly that you might as well be wiping with your little toe.)
* And have we factored the weight of all those organic, mud-caked root vegetables lugged back from the farmers market every weekend?
* A couple of hours in the garden is also virtually the same as a gym work out, except with floral, less sweaty, aromas. For city dwellers deprived of their own patch of Eden, there’s the British Trust of Conservation Volunteers, currently recruiting those willing to spend a few hours a week trimming hedges and planting bluebells.

The fact is that going green keeps you on your toes. It’s a physical, hands-on way of living and for that, all the more satisfying. So much so that I’m thinking of launching my own green fitness video. It will involve a pulse-racing combination of pacing around my flat (with a heavily loaded heaving recycling box), stretching (to install energy-saving light bulbs) and running (for the bus).
Are you with me?

Oh, and after all that exercise, before you head to the kitchen to start cooking, make sure you read the first of a new column on how to have a Green Kitchen in the Saturday Times Magazine. When it's up on-line, I'll link to it.

Comments

[Sarah]

Not to mention that a plant-based diet is less calorie-dense.

[Benjamin]

Not to mention that you lose all your friends becasue no one wants to spend time with a green bore. And you get invited round less for calorie-based dinner parties.
No, I'm joking. I agree. I know less green fatties.

[Edward]

I think that Ethan Greenhart does a better job on advising people in his column “A guide to eco living in the 21st Century”, especially with his article: “How can I stop my friend starting a family?” at http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2219/

Read it, it is marvelous!