Exercising Decreases Menopausal Symptoms and Reduces Breast Cancer Risk

Studies show that women who engage in regular exercise reduce their risk of developing breast cancer by nearly 30%.  This is especially true for women who have recently gone through menopause. Late age breast cancer risk decreased with post-menopausal women when they exercised regularly and maintained a healthy weight.

We know that women lead hectic lives. You balance career and family while still attempting to live an active lifestyle filled with the activities and hobbies you enjoy. Therefore, you may not find the idea of fractioning out a portion of your time, running mindlessly on a treadmill like a gym hamster, exciting. However, staying fit is essential to staying healthy.

So, we found some household activities, some more universal than others, which will keep you moving while keeping you healthy.

Mowing the Lawn - No cheating! You cannot sit on a riding lawn mower and count this as a calorie-burner. Pushing a lawn mower over a typical yard can burn up to 500 calories. The faster you move and the hillier your yard, the more you will burn.

Sweeping - This is a great exercise for your arms and shoulders. Go over the same area two or three times to pick up more dirt and you will pick up more muscle, too. In addition to a little toning, this exercise can also burn approximately 35 calories for every 10 minutes.

Weeding and Planting – A green thumb, along with a desire to beautify your yard will yield you fresh air and give you an extra burn of about 246 calories.

Wash the Car – As tempting as it is to pay someone to wash your car, when the temperatures are warm there is no better way to burn calories than to wash the car yourself! The average woman will burn up to 185 calories washing her car on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Carpentry – Is this a typo, you might be asking? No, it is not. Believe it or not many women enjoy building and constructing as much as men do. Actually, it is usually the quickest way for us to get something done without waiting on a man’s schedule. So, if you have a new kitchen table you have wanted to take a crack at . . . Go for it! You have nothing to lose except 278 calories for an hour of bliss in the workshop.

The calorie counts listed above were based on a woman with an average weight of 130 pounds. There are several online calculators that you can plug-in your weight to determine how many calories you could expect to burn completing these non-traditional exercise options.

Keeping active not only reduces your risk of breast cancer, but also contributes to less severe menopausal symptoms. So, grab your bucket and soap. That dirty car is waiting for you!