When you think of exercise, you probably think of treadmills, gyms, and jogging.

You can get physical activity without actually exercising.

Just a good house cleaning burns off a lot of calories-and you get a clean house at the same time.

Treadmills bore me to death and I don’t belong to a gym. I can go on walks, but the weather has to be right. When you take out the cold days, rainy days, and days I’m too busy that doesn’t leave a whole lot of walking days. There are some exercise machines out there that look like they won’t bore the crap out of me, but they are too expensive or I don’t have enough room.

So I look for ways to exercise that aren’t considered exercise.

Sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, doing laundry, dusting, cleaning the bathrooms, taking out trash, all this house cleaning stuff also burns off a good amount of calories. If you spend an entire hour doing nothing but cleaning, you had a good workout.

When going to the store, instead of looking for a parking place in the front, park in the back and walk up and get some extra calories burned off.

There are several ways to burn off calories that aren’t considered “exercise”.

Almost everyone craves sweets. There may be a few weirdos who don’t. The problem is, sweets usually are very high in calories and fat. And we’re not even talking about sugar here.

But you can still lose weight and have sweets. In the previous post, I talked about Cookie Crisp cereal as a way to satisfy your sweets craving.

There are a few more options to get your sweets without the tons of fat and calories like that, that would be in cake or brownies.

Chocolate chip granola bars. They have only around 100 calories each, so it’s a good sweet choice. There is even some that have 25% less sugar in them.

South Beach Diet meal bars. You can get them in chocolate peanut butter, or whatever your preferred flavor is. They aren’t as good as say, a candy bar, but they are much more healthy, have all the vitamins and healthy stuff your  body needs and you get your sweet craving.

Slim Fast Optima snack bars. These are good and taste just like candy bars, problem is, they are so tiny. I wouldn’t recommend these unless you only want a tiny amount of something sweet. The chocolate chip granola bars are bigger than these.

So there you have some ways to satisfy your sweet tooth while you are losing weight.

To find out about how much calories you burn off a day, you can use a calorie calculator.

You need to know 2 things. Your BMR-Basal Metabolic Rate which is how many calories you would burn off if you did nothing but lay in bed all day.

And then about how many calories you burn off a day depending on your activity level. A sedentary person will obviously burn off a lot less calories than someone who plays sports everyday.

Here is a site where you can easily find out about how many calories you burn a day: http://calorieneedscalculator.com/

You simply type in your height, weight and pick your activity level and with a press of a button you will know about how many calories your body burns off daily.

Then you will know how many calories you should consume a day to still lose weight. For example if you burn off 2500 calories a day, eat between 1500 and 2000 calories a day and you’ll lose weight.

For your BMR rate, here is a good calculator: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

To help you lose weight, you really need to keep track of how many calories you are consuming.

The only way to do this properly is to keep a calorie journal. There are online journals where you can keep track of calories or you can simply get a notebook. Write down everything you eat and drink. You will also know what areas you need improvement in. Such as are you eating too many calories for snacks or drinking too many calories?

It’s not fun and it will be a pain at times and you will have to do math too.

Let’s say you make a turkey sandwich. You will have to figure out how many calories where in the 2 slices of bread, the turkey, the mayonaisse and everything you put on that sandwich.

You will have to read the nutrition label for everything.

Now let’s say you have a banana or eat some zucchini which doesn’t come with a nutrional label. Then you simply go to google, look through the sites which list how many calories foods have, and write it down in your calorie journal. There are many sites that tell you how many calories all types of different foods have, so pick your favorite one and bookmark it.

It’s a pain to do it, but it will prevent you from eating too many calories, show you exactly how many calories you consume, and really help you to lose weight.

Don’t have a gym membership? Don’t have any exercise equipment? You can still exercise, get a good work out and burn those calories at home. There are several ways.

*Dancing-Turn on some music and dance, dance, dance.

*Jumping Jacks-You can do these anywhere and they are good for burning off those calories.

*Sit ups and Push ups-You can also do these anywhere, anytime

*Aerobics/Work out DVD-You can get a work out DVD and work out in front of the TV.

*Housework-It may be called cleaning or house work, but it still burns off those calories. Vacuum, sweep, mop, do laundry, dust, wipe down everything. Not only are you getting a clean house, but you are also burning calories.

*Run up and down stairs-If you have stairs in your home, run up and down them 10 times in a row. That will give you a good work out.

*Lifting dumbbells-You can get 10lb (or whatever weight) dumbbells and lift them everyday. They are inexpensive compared to exercise equipment.

You don’t realize how much calories is actually in stuff, until you start counting them and keeping track of every calorie you take in.

Wow, I had no idea! It was a shocker! I definitely stopped eating certain foods and others reduced my portion so that I didn’t eat too many calories.

I also was drinking way too many calories, it was ridiculous. I could drink 1,000 a day! And pizza, wow. I mean it’s delicious, I love pizza, but when you realize how many calories is in that stuff, you look at food completey different.

If you are over weight and want to shed those pounds, you have to have a calorie deficit. You have to burn off more calories than you take in, unfortunately there’s no way around it.

To find out how many calories you are taking in, you have to count calories. It’s not exactly thrilling or fun, but you sure do learn a lot about food and drinks.

Basically if you want to lose a lot of weight, you have to become “calorie obsessed.” You have to have an idea of how much calories you burn off in a day and you have to keep track of how many calories you are taking in.

Once you start reading labels, you may be surprised at how many calories foods actually have and realize you were getting way too many calories for meals, snacks or as beverages.