Falling for the "Real Exercise" Fallacy

Plus the garden photos nobody asked for. (And so many good links and recs!)

Friday Thread: Who Decides What “Counts” as Exercise?

As regular readers know, I am a giant fan of Lauren Leavell’s weight-inclusive, anti-diet strength training and barre workouts. I’ve been in a good groove alternating between them and my grumpy little walks with Penelope a few mornings per week, for much of the past year. (And here’s Lauren on the pod.)

But now, it’s full-on spring. My garden is doing something new and exciting every day. I have plants to get in the ground, I have monster hostas to dig up and divide, I have 9 million weeds to pull, I have plans. And while gardening is mostly a weekend hobby for me, at this time of year I’m out there every chance I can get. Which, as someone with a pretty busy job and two kids in the thick of Maycember, is not that many chances! So I’m doing what I’ve done many other springs: Turning my morning workout hour into a morning gardening hour. Some mornings this involves a lot of heavy lifting and digging and sweating. Some mornings, it’s light puttering/admiring, with a cup of coffee in hand.

And especially on those putter mornings, I’ve noticed that I’ve also started to do the other thing I have done many springs: Feel guilty that I’m “skipping workouts” because gardening is not “real” exercise.