Sewing my way to fitness

Today was supposed to be a training day for the half-marathon. An endurance walk of 8k. However, we were unexpectedly accompanied by a five-year-old that a friend had brought along. Before we began the walk, I spent some time looking between the printout of our route and the five-year old. I'd look at the map, look at the five-year-old, and look at the map again.

Call me a softy, but I just didn't have it in me to make the five-year-old walk 8 kilometres. I mean, if she was training to do a half-marathon, I woulda brought out the old whip. But alas, she was more interested in being a kid. So I modified our route to take us straight to a playground. Much fun was had by all. Even when I accidentally ate a medium-sized ice-cream cone. Heehee, oops!

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about the unsung health benefits of sewing. When I came home from the unsuccessful training walk, I went straight to making a basket liner for aforementioned-friend's wedding next week. I didn't even get out of my walking clothes, so, as a consequence, I happened to be wearing my pedometer.

Now, my sewing setup is less than ideal. In fact, it sucks. My serger is on the dining room table, my ironing board is in the kitchen, and my sewing machine is in the bedroom. When I'm working on a project that requires all three, you can bet I do a lot of moving between them. Until this afternoon, I didn't realize just how much moving I did. After finishing the liner, I checked my pedometer and was surprised to find that a couple hours of sewing had racked up over 4,000 steps!

So there you have it, ladies and gents. You can't make a five-year old walk an 8k, but you CAN burn calories while sewing. I bet Bowflex wouldn't want this to get out.