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10 Ways to Get Active Without Spending a Dime

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Winter: a time of holiday celebrations, breaks from school and hot chocolate by the fire. Unfortunately, the winter months are also a time of year when it seems easy to forget about our health. Just because it gets dark outside at 5:00 doesn’t mean your commitment to fitness should disappear with the sun. Take the elevator, not the stairs! Bundle up and enjoy a snowball fight and sledding! Take the family ice skating! But what about those really cold days, when you are truly stuck indoors? Here are 10 ideas to keep your family moving and grooving inside this winter. 

1. Dance. Grab a lively family-friendly music CD (or use Pandora or Youtube) and get dancing! Kidz Bop and Go Noodle are great suggestions. Dancing is fun and gets the muscles moving and heart racing. You could throw a dance party or jazz it up with a game of musical chairs, freeze in pose when the song stops or choreograph a family dance number.

2. Paint. Know that room you’ve been wanting to repaint? Grab some paint swatches and make a family decision on color. Then hand everyone a brush and get painting. Mom and/or Dad can handle the high places and the trim, while the kids can use the rollers or brushes on larger sections. Add in some fun by letting the kids draw or write messages to each other on the walls not yet painted! 

3. Speed clean: This form of exercise achieves two effects: The family gets moving AND the house gets cleaned. Vacuum, dust, scrub floors and baseboards and scour toilets and tubs. Turn it into a game: Whoever has his/her room cleanest in one hour gets to choose a film for movie night later!

4. Indoor obstacle course: This one is just for fun and may require a bit of cleanup after, but it is worth it. Gather your pillows, blankets, soft furniture, painter’s tape, yarn, hula hoops and whatever else you can find and create an indoor obstacle course. Here are a few ideas:

5. Jump rope: An oldie but a goodie. Jumping rope burns more calories than any other suggestion on this list. It is easy to do indoors (provided you have a bit of room) and can be done at various levels of intensity. Go for endurance: How long can you go before stopping? Jump in spurts: three minutes, rest, three minutes, rest. Then try double-jumping for an extra challenge!

6. Stair stepping: Position a step stool in front of a favorite TV show and get to stepping. No stool? Just go up and down the stairs as many times as you safely can in 10 minutes. Take a break and do it again! Extra points and calories burned if you have light hand weights or bottled water to carry!

7. Commercial fitness breaks: Every time a commercial comes on the TV, move! For three straight minutes, do push-ups, sit-ups, planks and jumping jacks! Go! Go! Go! The show is back on? Drink some water, rest and get ready for the next commercial!

8. Weekly sports night: Once a week, get everyone up and moving by playing sports night! Your family creates the games, like Fit-Deck Shuffle, for example. In this game, you create a series of playing cards featuring family-friendly exercises, such as bear-crawling or crab-walking. Each family member picks a card and performs the exercise pictured until all the cards have been dealt (Parents.com).

9. Free online workout routines: Endless lists of workouts safe for the entire family appear on Youtube or various other internet sources. Suggestions: Fitness Blender Kids, Beyonce’s “Move Your Body” and Family Circle (health and fitness section). Get online, gather up the family and get moving.

10. Deep Clean: Deep clean every room in your house this winter as your form of indoor exercise! Wipe the blinds, wash curtains and windows, pull all furniture away from walls and shampoo carpets. Tackle all those corners of your house that you can never seem to get to. Your house will never be cleaner and you’ll work up a sweat using your muscles!

Guess how many calories per hour these indoor activities will burn? 

(Calorie count is based on a 150-lb. person working at moderate level of intensity)

Calorie counter link: ACalorieCalculator.com

Olathe mom Karen Johnson has three children, ages 6, 4 and 2. She writes at The21stCenturySAHM.com.

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