Green Blog
05 January 2012
Losing the Christmas muffin top the green way
I've never enjoyed joining the rows of sweating people on machines watching daytime TV at the gym. It can hit not just your pocket but the planet too.
Some gyms, like the Green Micro Gym, enable gym-monkeys to produce electricity via exercise machines hooked up to generators. But most guzzle power.
Until human-powered gyms come to the UK, there are plenty of other inspiring ways to shift the excess flab from those Christmas treats.
The volunteering charity BTCV has been running its own green gym for years - you take on practical conservation jobs and get fit at the same time. Visit the BTCV website to find your nearest.
To avoid rising petrol prices and transport fare hikes, why not get on your bike? You'll save bundles of cash while burning calories not carbon. If you fancy a cycling challenge in 2012 you could sign up for Friends of the Earth's very own Big Green Bike Ride.
My favourite exercise is hula-hoop dance. Hooping around the waist is the first step - after that you can progress to all manner of tricks to build up a repertoire of moves. It's best to start with a large hoop designed for adults.
There are hoop classes all over the UK - the fabulous Anna of Youhoop is one of many teachers in London; try Spirit Hoop Cake in Milton Keynes; Hooping Mad in Bristol; and Edinburgh Hopping in Edinburgh.
I felt pretty silly the first time I told someone I'd started hula-hooping. But now I've been doing it 2 years and never felt healthier. Hooping is so much fun - and it's so much easier to keep doing something regularly if you enjoy it.
My advice: choose something you fancy - no matter how obscure or silly - and go for it.
Katharine Tatum, Communications & Media team
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