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Easy exercises to try while you're making dinner      

By Brittany Doohan 

Cooking is usually associated with consuming calories — but with some clever tricks, you can burn calories while you cook, too! Make the kitchen your gym during dinner prep with these five fun ideas. (What else are you going to do during the 1-minute microwave countdown?!)

• Keep a CD player or radio in the kitchen. Music can be a great motivator to dance while you cook.
• Waiting for a pot to boil? Use that time wisely. Do leg lifts (stand straight up with hands on the counter and lift one leg backwards for a few reps, then switch) or push-ups (place hands on the counter, move your legs backwards so you’re at a diagonal, then push yourself up and down with your arms) against the kitchen counter.
• In the 60 seconds it takes to reheat your leftovers, do some calf raises. Simply lift your heels off the floor and balance on the balls of your feet. Then slowly lower back down. Repeat until your food is ready.
• When you’re unloading and loading the dishwasher, do a squat (stand with feet a little wider than shoulder-width apart, hips stacked over knees, and knees over ankles, then lower yourself into a “chair” position then lift yourself back up to a standing position) in between each dish you add or put away.
• Put away that electric mixer and mix your ingredients the old-fashioned way: manually!

Published April 14, 2016. 

Brittany Doohan is a health and lifestyle writer and editor living in San Francisco.