How To Burn Calories Without Even Trying

I have found that I am in love with my fitness app on my phone.  Really, truly in love.  Who knew that thirty minutes of snorkeling would burn 272 calories?  Not moi.   It doesn’t feel like exercise to me.  To me, it is utter bliss.  Gliding though the water hearing nothing the heightened sound of your own breathing, eyes scanning the ocean floor in hopes of spotting a sand dollar, seeing the occasional fish dart past – this, I could do all day long.  But as I was snorkeleling along, I realized that this is a leg workout, at least to some degree, with the water and fins providing resistance.  So when I finally pulled my pruney self out of the water, I thought to myself “What the heck.  Can’t hurt to look it up, right?”  I pulled out my trusty phone, opened up the app and typed in snorkeling.  Ah-ha!  There it was.  All I had to do was punch in the number of minutes I had been pretending to be a fish (a fish mind you,  something sleek and fast like a barracuda, not a manatee, even if I resemble one!)  I was ever so pleasantly surprised to learn that thirty minutes of snorkeling equaled 272 calories burned.  Oh joy!  Oh rapture!  I have found another way to cross train and it’s fun!  Something I love to do!

As I parked my keester in my beach chair and commenced to pat myself copiously on the back for my discovery, a niggling doubt crept into my waterlogged brain.  Was this just a little bit too easy?  And isn’t letting myself get away with a measly 272 calorie burn almost like, well, cheating???  As I gazed at the crystal, turquoise water that was calling for me to come and float and be lazy, bobbing in the warm Gulf waters with my foam noodle, I knew what I had to do.   I had to earn that bobbing time.  With a reluctant sigh, I hauled my carcass out of the beach chair and started walking down the beach, GPS –enabled phone app in tow to tell me how far I trekked.

A funny thing happened about fifteen minutes into my walk.  I started to feel pretty darned good.  I think it might have been those sneaky endorphins again.   I didn’t walk at quite the sidewalk-burning pace I do when I walk in the neighborhood, but I walked over three miles and for an hour and twenty minutes.  Mission accomplished.  I had met my daily fitness goal and rewarded myself with a long, relaxing bob in the Gulf waters with my beloved foam noodle.  And a margarita at the Old Salty dog on my way home……….