Busy Mums Burning Calories* 

Great news, ladies! Even if you don’t get the thanks you deserve for all the hard work you do at home, at least you’re burning calories. The human body requires energy, measured in calories, just to maintain life, like digest food or sleep, but the more active a person is the more energy their body uses. Whether it’s taking care of the kids or taking care of the house, the things you need to get done burn calories and help manage weight.

Taking care of the kids

Getting little ones dressed and fed throughout the day can wear you out. Sitting and kneeling while you’re getting kids into clothes and feeding them burns 211 calories. If you’re standing while you’re doing this then you’d burn 246 calories. Cooking and preparing meals is another thing on a mum’s to-do list. For each hour of cooking, 176 calories are burned.

Once the kids are satisfied, pushing them in their strollers burns 176 calories, while carrying an infant requires 246 calories. Children love to be active, so get involved in their games. If they’re little and it’s only a moderate activity then you’ll burn 281 calories, or if you’re having fun during vigorous activity you’ll use 352 calories.

Maintaining order in the house

Cleaning can definitely make you break a sweat! It may not be the most enjoyable thing you do, but you can burn 176 calories for light effort, 246 calories for moderate effort, and 317 calories for vigorous cleaning. When you really get things done, such as scrubbing the floors on your hands and knees, you’re burning 387 calories.

If you decide to rearrange your furniture or do some spring cleaning, then you’ll be burning more calories than just average cleaning. Moving furniture burns 422 calories, carrying boxes around the house burns 492 calories, and carrying boxes upstairs burns 633 calories. Might be good motivation to finally get your house in order!

Keeping the backyard tidy

Garden work doesn’t have to be reserved for dads. Many people enjoy gardening, which burns 352 calories, and the things you love are the best activities to participate in. Raking up those leaves uses 281 calories, sweeping burns 281 calories, and mowing with a push mower expends 387 calories.

Convenient ways to increase activity

Try to find endeavours that sound exciting to keep active in ways you’ll enjoy. Used to really enjoy playing sports? It’s never too late to get back to playing them and most can be done in or around your home. Biking at a moderate effort burns 563 calories, dancing uses 317 calories, jogging requires 493 calories, running at an easy pace utilises 563 calories, swimming leisurely burns 422 calories, and playing tennis uses up 493 calories.

Walking is another way to enjoy the outdoors and the company of someone walking with you while burning 246 calories at dog-walking pace. One last way to get engaged in a sport is to coach, and you’ll be burning 281 calories while helping out.

*End note: Calorie estimates are for a 68kg individual doing one hour of activity. Differences in calories burned for individuals can be due to weight, muscle mass, gender, and age.

Encouraging your Picky Eaters to Explore

Do your children refuse everything but Mac-n-cheese? Why are kids so picky?

Our natural instinct is to be a little fearful of new things. Negative reactions to foods, or neophobia, isn’t common in infants, but it does increase between the ages of two and five. Being afraid of novel foods can be considered a safety mechanism for littlies because they’re just starting to explore and figure out which things are safe and which are not.

For both children and adults, one negative experience after eating a food can turn you off that particular food for a long, long time. If your child became ill after eating a certain food or meal, even if the food itself wasn’t to blame, he or she might form an association and never want to eat that food again. This is known as a food aversion.

Repeat exposures are key… don’t force it

Food preferences are largely learned, but this process can take time. Studies show that it can take 12-15 exposures for children to accept new foods. Try to coax your kids into just taking one bite, but don’t force the issue. Forcing the issue with food can make mealtimes into pressure and stress-filled occasions and turn them into something that children will want to avoid. Try to be patient when you put the food on their plate, and ask them to just taste it. Remember, just because they refused broccoli twice doesn’t mean you should give up. Try again next time.

Familiarity

If you’d like to try to speed up the process of having your children more comfortable with different foods, bring them into the kitchen with you. Programmes to increase fruit and vegetable intake in elementary schoolchildren worked by having the children grow them in their school garden and then cook them at home with their families. Allowing your little ones to pick out foods at the grocery store and involving them in food preparation will make the foods seem less ‘weird’ and may make them slightly more willing to give those vegetables a try.

Get sneaky

Pairing new flavours with something that’s already liked and accepted will increase the likelihood of enjoying the new flavour. Try to sneak those healthy vegetables into sauces, soups, stews or cheesy dishes.

Change eating habits

Children’s and teens’ eating habits are influenced by their peers, but most strongly by their parents. Parents can be good role models, but they have to practise healthy eating habits too. Try to make mealtimes a family time. Not only is it a special bonding time for you and your children, but many studies have shown families that eat together tend to have children of a healthier weight. These families are less likely to mindlessly eat in front of the TV or rely on fast food to fuel their bodies.

No need to clean the plate

If your child is full, let that be enough. After the age of five, children will eat more when offered more. Keep in mind that children do have smaller stomachs so their portions should be smaller. Sometimes, kids refuse dinner because they have spent the afternoon snacking on junk food. If this is the case, remove unhealthy snacks from the house and encourage healthy, portion-controlled snacks so your kids will be hungry for their nutritious dinner.

Don’t use food as a reward

Using food as a reward puts a higher value on that particular food. For example, if icecream is used as leverage to motivate a child to finish his broccoli or homework, then the icecream is what he starts to work for. Instead of your children working hard at school to earn your praise or a feeling of achievement, they might start working for a sweet treat. Children of all ages are struggling with weight gain today, so using food as a reward, especially high-calorie foods, may be detrimental to your child’s long-term health in later life.

We would like to thank Curves for these articles.

For women only, Curves is the largest fitness club in the world with 10,200 clubs in 57 countries and more than 5 million members on the Curves circuit.