Memorial Day weekend is just around the corner. It’s not just a great time to bond with family and friends as we kick off the summer of 2024, but there are great opportunities to get a little exercise in as well. Since the weather will hopefully be warm and sunny wherever you are, let’s hit the outdoors and have some fun!
While the deeper meaning behind Memorial Day is to commemorate the men and women who have served our country in the Armed Forces, it’s also a time to enjoy a little outdoor fun with friends. Here are some activities you can take part in and how many calories you can expect to burn in the process:
Golf
Hitting the links is not only a nice way to get a few miles of walking in, you can get your competitive juices flowing as well (even if it’s just a matter of competing with yourself). According to a study by Neil Wolkodoff, director of the Rose Center for Health and Sports Sciences in Denver, putting in just 9 holes of golf, carrying your clubs and walking, you will burn about 700 calories.
Hiking
Sure, you could go to your gym and walk or run on a treadmill for 30 minutes, but how does that compete with the beautiful surroundings of an afternoon hike? Calculating the calories burned on a hike is nearly impossible considering the endless possibilities of distance, incline, and whether or not you are carrying a backpack and with how much weight. For the sake of simplicity, if a woman weighing 145 pounds went on an hour cross-country hike, she would burn a little over 400 calories.
Frisbee
Take to your closest neighborhood park and throw a Frisbee with a friend or even man’s best friend and you can burn a couple hundred calories.
Swimming
You don’t have to be an Olympic athlete or even swim vigorously to enjoy the calorie burning benefits of taking a dip. Not only can you cool off and relax, depending on how much you weigh, you can burn between 250 and 400 calories in an hour.
Water Skiing
Is swimming a little too tame for you? With water skiing, you’re not just going for a ride – there’s strength involved in staying on top of the water’s surface while that boat is dragging you! Besides toning your entire body due to the resistance involved, you can burn over 200 calories in 30 minutes (based on a person weighing 150 pounds).
No matter what activity you decide on, the important thing is to have fun while you’re doing it!
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