Last year at this time gardening was the biggest loser

We moved to our house 2.5 years ago. The first year we concentrated on getting the inside fixed up (and it desperately needed it) and then last spring I got to working in the yard, which was basically a clean slate and it's pretty big for a city yard - a third of an acre.

While I got a lot done last year and I'm seeing a lot of the pretties in the yard from all that work, I already detailed how much more needs to be done - a lot. So, I went to the nursery last night with Henry and stocked up on more pretties - some annuals for the bazillion of pots and planters I have and perennials for the ground. I know I'll need more, but one thousand projects at once, not ten thousand.

I am actually looking forward to getting out there and digging in the dirt and last year's efforts led to the biggest/fastest losses on the scale I have seen in this journey. Why? Well, gardening is hard work - digging, pulling, stooping, pushing, shoving, lifting, hauling, etc. And you don't just garden for an hour like when you go to the gym to exercise. No, you garden all day long and when you have a yard like mine that needs a lot of work? You have weeks of such work in store and that burns a lot of calories.

I was listening one day on NPR about how the American lifestyle has changed dramatically over the last 100 years and with that our caloric intake. In a mostly agricultural society, people worried about how to get enough calories into the body. An average man in a day needed more than 3500 calories just to break even and a woman not much less. Their foods were full of fat as fats are calorie dense. Whereas today, an average man needs about 2000 calories a day if he sits in front of a computer all day and he's concerned about reducing calories - not increasing them. The difference is the activity level.

So, last year I spent about 4-5 weeks in the garden and that month I saw my biggest drop on the scale. Being hot and working hard suppresses my appetite, so I didn't eat a lot more and I was burning off a ton of calories from working all day in the dirt. My hope is this spring I'll see similar results. I'll take five pounds in a month now instead of the 14-15 I had then... less to lose now, of course.

With that, I'm off. The front of my garage looks like a miniature nursery full of beautiful flowers. Can't wait to start digging! Unfortunately, I need to mow too... grrr...

Stats for 5/5/12:

Highest weight: 275  Now: 172