This is not a view of my garden, but a picture of snow geese on the Richmond Dyke from the bird sanctuary. Birdwatching, like gardening, doesn’t necessary qualify as real exercise.

Sometimes a girl has to do what is necessary. What works for me is having my coach text me every single day to ask “what kind of exercise did you do today?”.  It is a remarkably effective way to ensure that I get my butt off my chair and onto my bike or into the gym. If I spend a lot of time working in the yard, I sometimes text back “gardening!” as my response. Although being outside is mentally and physically healthy, I am not entirely convinced that gardening really qualifies as exercise. Gardening may not make me fitter, but exercise definitely makes me a better gardener with regards to building  strength, balance and stamina.

(Where was I going with this? Oh yeah…self-promotional seque to a blog I wrote for BCliving.ca). Now that I’ve finally managed to get my daily exercise routine down, I’ve been thinking of finding  ways to apply the same motivation concepts to getting into the garden on a daily basis. Here are some ideas in this blog for bcliving.ca: http://www.bcliving.ca/garden/fall-garden-clean-up-in-fifteen-minutes-a-day-0

The flip side of the exercise equation (at least for me) is food. Stay tuned for the next post on “eating big, eating local”….