When the Blogmeister family moved into their current house one of the first things I did was to build a couple of sturdy workbenches in the garage. Mr. and Mrs. Blogmeister both have hobbies that keep them busy when time allows (Mrs. Blogmeister is the talented and creative one; I’m just a reasonable talentless tinkerer). It’s time together that we enjoy and is a grand alternative to sitting on the couch watching TV and eating Cheetos. (Side note…did you see where Burger King is making fried Mac & Cheese rolled in that oh-so-natural-looking orange dust that goes on Cheetos? Yikes!)

I was out in the garage for several hours over this past weekend building some shelving and  listening to a baseball game (gotta love live streaming over the phone and Bluetooth connectivity to a little CD player) and thought to myself, “Heeeyyyy, standing up out here is more work than sitting and watching the game on TV, does that mean I’m burning more calories?” Off to Livestrong.org, a great resource for all things healthy, to do some digging around. It turns out that standing is indeed more “work” than sitting and burns an extra 20 to 50 calories every hour. Sweet. (Sadly, that translates into the calories consumed by eating a heaping pile of only 7 Cheetos. Wow.)

Never one to stop at one link on the net I started looking at what other activities burned calories and guess what I found? Singing! Yup, if you’re standing and singing for an hour you’re burning a bunch of calories. It all depends on what you weigh but for the Blogmeister it comes out to around 180. How cool is that?

Believe it not, that’s exactly the same amount of exercise as non-strenuous walking for a mile and a half! (For clarification, “non-strenuous” is strolling at a pace where you can still carry on a conversation comfortably.) If you add another activity like working around the house you add to that number. And seriously, cranking up the tunes and singing while you’re vacuuming or ironing or any other mundane task makes it WAY more fun.

So there you have it. Not only are our Tuesday night rehearsals fun and uplifting and a chance to make a joyful noise with our friends…they’re also a diet plan!