Did You Know You Can Burn 800 Calories an Hour Shoveling Snow?

So for those of you who are not in the metropolitan DC area, I wanted to let you know how the weekend has gone so far. Usually I would be in the gym on Saturday morning doing my thing and trying to drop those love handles one at a time, however this weekend was a little different.

On Friday afternoon the mid-Atlantic east coast  was visited by a most unwelcome guest - Snowzilla 2010, Snowmageddon 2010, or a load of snow dumped on our area. As we sat inside eating low fat, low taste cardboard like cereal, we could see the world as we knew it transformed as a layer of some 30inches or so of snow covered the land. Wow! this was quite the storm and quite a spectacular change of view from our living room. 

So with passage to the car blocked, and passage to the street nigh impossible, there was nothing to be done but to figure out how to burn those calories without the treadmill. It didnt take long to see the solution - there beside my from door was a trusty snowshovel, and beyond that 30 inches of rather wet snow blocking me from my car, and my car from the street. 

According to this web site a 300lb man (me) could burn 800+ per hour shoveling snow. If this were true, then I spent approximately 12-15 hours this Saturday, Sunday and Monday shoveling snow - that is a lot of calories. To add to my work out I did a small re-enactment of Rocky Balboa from Rocky IV when Rocky went to Russia to train in the snow. That great scene of him running knee deep in snow was great. My re-enactment was only over a distance of 30 feet (you have to start somewhere) and was more of a rescue than a training run. My two snow angels were out the back playing when I heard a scream and looked up to see Emma (my 3 year old) sitting on top of a pile of snow with only one snow boot on. The other had apparently gone down in the hole she created when she stepped out, but never returned with her foot when she took her next step. So a run through 30 inches of snow (not graceful, trust me) and quick dig around and the boot was returned to its rightful place one her left foot.

So no chance of getting to the gym, but some strenuous shoveling and a little scamper should keep the metabolism ticking over. Maybe back to the gym tomorrow.

Who knows?