How to get your heart healthy at home

Household chores, cleaning windows, and gardening are ideal ways to increase your heart rate. They all involve NEAT: Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (the heat or energy we use up in routine daily activities). Here's how to use it to your benefit.

Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic, whose team led the research on NEAT, estimates that the many conveniences we use daily — everything from cars and elevators, to dishwashers and television remote controls — deprive us of 100 to 200 calories per day of NEAT that we could be expending.

According to Dr. Levine, this may be the cause of "the entire obesity epidemic." The next time you do housework, try the routine described below. It is guaranteed to get you moving up a gear.

• Put on some lively, invigorating music to keep the pace going, and sing along with it so you exercise your lungs and chest muscles.
• Start with a light chore, such as dusting, as a warm-up.
• Make a conscious effort to contract abdominal and thigh muscles when you bend and stretch (such as when making beds), holding for 10 seconds each time.
• Run up and down the stairs as often as you can. This is a wonderful aerobic workout, especially if you are carrying a heavy load.
• When you are cleaning windows or polishing, deliberately trace wide energetic loops to help tone and strengthen arm muscles.
• Push the vacuum cleaner as far forward as you can on each sweep.
• When you are picking things up to tidy a room or fill a laundry basket, do a separate squat for each item, bending from the knees and keeping your back straight.
• Use a low stool to do step-up exercises when cleaning windows or dusting shelves and picture frames.

• Did you know that climbing a flight of stairs in a typical house burns two calories in under 15 seconds?
• By getting the most out of your regular chores at home, you can use a little muscle and get fit, while also saving money you would have spent getting someone else to do these tasks for you.