How to Make Playing with Your Kids a Calorie Burning Workout

How to Keep Those Legs Moving!

For those of you who have a child or children, do not need reminding that babysitting a child can be exhausting. That is if you choose to do an outdoor physical activity with them. Of course, there is always the option of just sitting indoors and playing with building blocks or reading a book. But those types of activities are not going to burn off energy for both parties involved. These days with computers and various other technological devices it can be difficult sometimes to get kids to go outside and play. They tend to find the slightest excuse to avoid physical play. The following are some ideas to help get kids to get interested in playing and for parents to burn some calories while doing so.

Playing sports is one of the first and most obvious ways to burn those calories. The trick with getting kids involved is to find one that they will also be interested in. Then there is the issue of girls versus boys. Boys tend to get attracted to sports that girls may not necessarily want to do. This is only a problem if you have a son and a daughter to entertain. However, there are sports that both groups can like and that would be tennis. Most kids, regardless of gender, like to hit a ball around. With tennis, it is never too early start and you can get some exercise to boot. However, soccer is perhaps the best sport to get into, both in terms of entertainment value as well as an exercise activity. What’s more, girls, as well as boys, love to play soccer. And you as the parent will get plenty of opportunities to run about and knock off some calories. In fact, the average person weighing less than 170 pounds can burn off as much as 250 calories for every 30 minutes of walking around. With soccer, it should be little more than that because there will be some running or jogging involved. Which brings us to the next activity and that would be hiking. The trick here is to make interesting.

Instead of just telling the child or children we are going for a walk, make it sound like a fun and adventurous experience. Tell them that a small snack will be packed and take some binoculars with you. Some kids, especially boys, like sticks. So, give them a stick but make it clear it is to use as an aid for walking. As far as burning calories are concerned going on hikes is hands down one of the best activities. Even just walking for a couple of hours you can expect to burn as much as 1000 calories.The thing to keep in mind as far as getting kids interested in doing something is that it needs to sound interesting. It is all in the presentation. Once that part has been done and assuming you did a good job, you can get them to climb Mount Everest with you. And if you can combine an activity and make it educational also, then you are hitting several birds with one stone.