Physical Activities A Mom Can Do to Lose Weight

Image by Ed Yourdon via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

It's been a week since I wrote the part 1 of my post on How to Lose Weight in 2011.  In that post, I talked about how to reduce my calorie intake. So far, I think, I'm having some success since I see that I've lost about half a pound already. (Remember, my target is to lose 2 pounds a month).

Today, I wish to write the part 2 of that post.  This time I will talk about how to increase my calorie expenditure.  That simply means that I have to do more physical activities and stop being sedentary in front of the computer.

Every physical activity we do has an equivalent caloric expenditure.  We had a class activity in Nutrition class where we wrote all our activities for a day. The details included what activity and how much time was spent (in minutes or hours) doing it. Then, we referred to a Metabolic Equivalents (MET) table (click the link for sample) where we found the amount of energy burned with the specific type of physical activity. Back then, my caloric expenditure (my physical activities) was almost equal to my caloric intake (what I eat), which was why I was within the range of my ideal weight.



Anyway, I won't go into that detail in my plan to increase my caloric expenditure. I just needed to write some activities I haven't been doing before and start doing them regularly.  Here's my list of physical activities I plan to do (I'm already doing some of them since January) aside from the regular house chores (laundry, ironing, house cleaning, etc).

Walking up and down the stairs. Well, I do that before. What's different this time is that I have to walk up to the rooftop carrying a pail of laundry clothes to hang them there. I have to do that 3 times on the average since my regular laundry load is about 3 pails. And I usually do my laundry 3 times a week (that much clothes for a family of 7).  Then, I also have to bring down the dry clothes, so that's additional calories burned for me.

Walking with my 2-year old daughter. Actually, she's not walking. She's biking but since she still doesn't know how to pedal, I have to push her bike and walk around. We've been doing that for about 15-30 minutes a day. In the picture below, Ate Kristel is pushing Angel's bike for me while I hang our clothes to dry.

Kristel and Angel, Biking.

Riding a Bike. All my children like bike riding. Last week, I borrowed the bike of my son and I really enjoyed riding for a couple of minutes. I remember how I really enjoy biking when I was still young. But, I have to buy a new one because I think, I'm quite heavy for that bike.

Janel enjoys biking.

Playing table tennis. My 2 sons are very much interested in playing this sport so I play some pingpong with them. If we could at least play 3 times a week for 30 minutes that would be good. I know it's not as tiring as playing tennis (I was learning this before but stopped), but it will do. We don't have to go out of the house or spend some cash on renting a tennis court.


Aerobic exercise. I have some videos (including Taebo and Les Mills Body Combat which I enjoy) at home which I could follow as an alternative to the physical activities I have mentioned above. I really have to schedule at least 30 minutes of that 3 times a week.

Having a variety of activities to do will help me not to get bored doing them. Doing the activities with my kids will also be special bonding times with them. They are actually the ones who keeps on telling me to do some of these things. Oh, I really hope I can keep doing these so that I could consistently lose weight and attain my goal by the end of the year.

How about you? What physical activities are you doing to lose weight or maintain your already desirable weight?  Having some physical activities are not for people who just want to lose weight but also for those who want to keep fit and healthy, right?