Starting a diet, boosting your fitness and doing more to help the environment are common New Year’s resolutions. With a bit of forward planning you can do all three – and reveal a healthier, fitter, greener you.
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Walk or pedal your way to fitness
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Gardening is a great form of exercise. All that digging, sowing and weeding helps tone up muscles and a half hour stint can burn up as many calories as riding a bike. You also get to eat the fruits of your labour. Freshly grown fruit and veg tastes so much nicer than shop brought produce. It is usually higher in vitamins as it gets to your plate quicker and hasn’t been sprayed in pesticides. If you haven’t got a garden, consider hiring some space in an allotment.
If growing your own food isn’t possible, try to buy fresh seasonal vegetables from local producers, as this will minimise carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from production and transportation.
Get a basic guide to growing your own fruit and veg >
Find out more running your own allotment >
Find local food producers in your area >
Planning healthy meals makes it easier to avoid high fat, high sugar fast foods or ready meal alternatives. A meal plan also helps you cut down on food waste, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
If you have a garden, it’s a good idea to start a compost pile for food waste. This will make a great fertilizer for growing fruit and veg. It also shows you the extent of the food (and money) that you are wasting, so you can re-plan your shopping list accordingly.
Visit recycle-now.com for tips on starting your own home composting.
Cook big batches of food at once and then freeze them into the right sized portions for each meal. This way you don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen each night and can grab a quick meal in a very energy efficient way. Good meals to freeze include bolognaise, chilli con carne, homemade soups and lasagne. You can get more tips on freezing food and find out what not to freeze here.
Use a steamer. It uses less water than boiling and helps retain more vitamins. If you don’t have a separate steamer, use a pan and a metal colander. Boil some water in the pan and put whatever you are steaming in the metal colander, then rest this over the steam until it is cooked. You will need to put a lid over the colander to keep the steam in.
Put a jug of water in the fridge so you don’t have to run the tap every time you want a glass of cold water.
Leave the car at home, give public transport a miss and walk or cycle as much as possible. Walking and cycling are great forms of cardiovascular exercise and can help tone muscles. And they won’t cost you a penny.
You can find walking and cycling routes online.
Walkit.com gives free route maps between any two points and also gives you a journey time, calorie burn, step count and carbon saving.
Walkingbritain.co.uk provides details of scenic walking routes round the UK.
Cycle-route.com will help you find safe and scenic cycle paths round the UK.
Little changes can help you burn off those extra calories – and stop wasting energy.
Get up off the sofa and turn appliances off rather than the using the remote control to put them on standby.
Use the stairs instead of lifts to tone up your legs and backside. This will help the environment too as lifts are powered by electricity.
Turn the heating off down if you’re exercising at home, as you’re likely to get very hot from the extra activity and don’t want to overheat.
Opt for exercises that don’t require electrical power. Who wants to pay expensive gym fees when we’ve got the great outdoors? Outdoor walking, running and cycling work your heart, lungs, legs and bum. And you can use park benches to do tricep lifts to work your arms. You can even make it a social occasion. If you have dogs, take them for longer walks. Or grab a friend and hike around your local nature reserve. If the weather’s bad or you want to stay close to home, try skipping or step aerobics on the stairs. Tins of beans from the cupboard (or spaghetti, soup etc) make great barbells for toning arms. For more inspiration, get a free home circuit workout from netfit.co.uk
Do the housework. Housework is known to burn calories. Hoovering, changing sheets, doing the laundry, sweeping the floor. It all requires physical movement and lifting and pushing heavy objects can’t help but tone muscle. To make your muscles work harder and save on your washing bills, wait until you have a full load before carrying the laundry to the machine.
Hang the washing out instead of using the tumble dryer. Not only will you not waste energy, you’ll also get a mini workout – especially if you peg everything outside. Keep the laundered clothes in a basket on the ground and crouch down to pick up each item before reaching high to peg them. Keep your stomach tight, your back straight and remember to bend from the knees.
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If you’re using home exercise equipment, remember to switch it off home after use.
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You’ve probably worked up a bit of sweat after all that exercise. Get fresh again by taking a quick shower, which generally uses less energy than baths.
If you feel a bit chilly afterwards, put on an extra layer to see if that’s enough to warm you up before resorting to turning up the heating.
When you’re washing your gym kit, wait until you have a full load of laundry rather than washing it on its own. A half-load setting on the washing machine is slightly misleading as it actually uses more than half the water and energy of a full load.
Get a basic guide to growing your own fruit and veg >
Find out more running your own allotment >
Find local food producers in your area >
Visit recycle-now.com for tips on starting your own home composting >
Get tips on freezing food and find out what not to freeze >
Get a great value steamer for under £10 from Argos >
Get free walking route maps between any two points >
Get scenic walking routes in the UK >
Find UK cycle routes >
Get a free home circuit workout at netfit.co.uk >
Find out more about loft insulation >
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