No, you did not read the title of my blog post today wrong. Today we're talking about burning more calories while we sew. And before we get started, I just want to state for the record, I am not a doctor and there is risk involved in starting any exercise regimen. Consult with your doctor before proceeding. I take no responsibility in any injury you may incur while attempting to replicate any of these moves.

Now I don't know about you, but when I think about sewing I definitely don't think about burning calories. I think of something like this, which involves a lot of sitting and not a whole lot of movement. But I'm about to change all that.

So, why would I even want to burn more calories while sewing? If you read my Resolution Post, you'd know that I've recently lost a lot of weight. And while I did sew a lot during that time, I didn't lose the weight because I sat in front of my sewing machine. But the other thing is, no one will EVER define me as a gym rat. You'll never catch me spending hours on an elliptical or running a marathon because that is not my style.

My style is more slow and steady. Changing little things in my life so that I'm getting a few extra minutes of movement each day. So that means tweaking my life to involve more motion and burn more calories.

At first, that meant that I would use my standing cutting station more. Because of course standing burns more calories than sitting. AND, the motion of standing up and sitting down to get to/from my sewing machine counts as doing a squat. Win/win. So now, any time I need to pin something, I stand up and pin at my cutting station. That's easy enough.

But it wasn't enough really. Standing up and sitting down a dozen times isn't really a lot of exercise, but it was an improvement over sitting the entire time. So I had to come up with another way to add in more movement. So I started standing in tree pose (using my arms of course). That actually takes a lot more work than you might think!

Now of course you reach a point when that isn't hard enough either. But of course you want to be safe. So every time I stood up, I'd do some sort of exercise. 10 squats, 10 reverse lunges, 10 plie squats, 10 push ups off of my cutting table,  etc. Now I was actually doing exercise and burning calories. WOOT!
All of these things are really great when you're feeling motivated and wanting to really burn a few extra calories. But I realized that for as many days as I feel motivated and do all the things here, there are going to be just as many days where just standing up are going to be all I can take. And so now I present to you my secret weapon, a balance disk.
Now I don't have to force myself to exercise, because my exercise is just standing up. If you've never tried a balance disk, these things are awesome. When you first step on, its a little hard to find your balance. But once you do, easy peasy, no big deal. So you start standing there. And the first few minutes are easy. But the longer you stand on it, the more work your legs do. And eventually your legs actually get tired. Not like a little bit tired. Like OMG, my legs are burning.

I'm not quite there yet, but you can even work up to doing your tree pose or squats on the balance disk too! I'll call that advanced calorie burning while sewing. ;)

Now of course this doesn't raise your heart rate substantially and it isn't a substitute for regular exercise, but it is a great way to burn just a few more calories while sewing. Do you have things you do while sewing that help you burn calories? Comment below because I want to hear them!

And for anyone wondering whether they should believe me, just standing up burns 20-50 more calories per hour. You can do it! http://www.livestrong.com/article/73916-calories-burned-standing-vs.-sitting/