So, on a lighter note, instead of doing my regular food post, I thought I would take the opportunity to do a fun post on exercise. Yes, I used exercise and fun in the same sentence! No groaning; hang with me here - there's something for you at the end ;)
Many of us feel the need to have an exercise buddy when we first start a fitness program. I'll admit, I had friends lined up almost every day of the week to go for a walk with me when I first began to include exercise in my weight loss journey. It was nice to have company and helped keep me accountable. As I would walk on the fitness trail near my home, I noticed that quite a few people had their dogs either walking or running with them. It never dawned on me before that my dog, Rocky, could have been my exercise buddy, too! We all know the benefits of exercise for ourselves which include weight loss or weight maintenance, heart health and stress management. Turns out, those same exercise benefits apply to our pets, too.
I recently came across this article on Sparkpeople and this article on Weight Watchers.com about exercising with your dog. There was a study done by the University of Missouri-Columbia that discovered their participants that walked with a dog on a regular schedule, building up to 20 minutes per day, 5 days per week ended up losing an average of 14 pounds per person! And let's not forget about the pooches! Another study done at Northwest Memorial Hospital's Wellness Institute found that obese people who tried losing weight with their overweight dogs lost an average of 11 pounds in a year and their dogs lost 16% of their body weight!!
We can bring our dogs along for any outdoor physical activity whether it's hiking, backpacking, jogging or running. We'll get some heart healthy exercise and so will our dogs; plus we'll have a fun time and lose weight! So, in honor of May being Physical Fitness Month, my uber cool friends at DogToys.com offered to do a giveaway of some items to encourage you and your pup to get fit this month! The items included in this giveaway are...
How awesome is that??!! We got a chance to try out a Zisc with our dog, Rocky...
We ran around the yard with it, playing fetch, chase and tug of war...
He won! 
He had a blast and so did we! Plus, we got all got some good heart pumping exercise in!
Now, all you have to do to win this fabulous giveaway(worth over $30) is...
- Leave me a comment telling me what kind of dog you have and his/her name,
- For an extra entry, link back to this post on your blog(make sure to send me an email to margizz@comcast.net with the link to your post)
- If you don't have a blog, no worries. Just send me an email.
I'll choose a winner via Random Number Integer on Friday, May 8 @ 12:00 p.m. EST. Again, USA only (sorry guys!). Good luck to everyone!
Have a great night and I'll see you tomorrow for my regularly scheduled program ;D
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