To get in shape, skip the gym and start a garden, instead | Opinion

If you’d like to get in shape, your first instinct is usually to add a fancy piece of equipment to your home or head to your local gym.

I know I’m guilty of this. I was overweight most of my life, looking for the secret to weight loss. Over the years, I bought gym memberships to pump myself up. I’d go for a few weeks until the motivation eventually faded.

But I found that the answer to a healthier lifestyle is much closer than you might think — only a few steps away in your backyard.

Six years ago, at age 29, I started a vegetable garden, and it was the most significant turning point in my weight loss journey.

As a young adult, I was like many Americans and regularly ate highly processed foods for most of my meals. I was a picky eater and didn’t have an interest in trying most vegetables. That led to a lifelong struggle to lose weight.

I used to believe the solution was intense exercise, but that wasn’t the case for me, and it might not be the case for you, either. Strenuous exercise actually increased my cravings for indulgent sweets and salty snacks. Even worse, I’d trick myself into believing I earned a reward because I completed a workout.

Gardening has brought me a much more holistic approach to physical and mental well-being. Here are a few of the ways it helped me:

1. Exercise. Breaking ground to begin planting requires manual labor that works your entire body. You can add intensity by hauling buckets of dirt or dead-lifting bags of mulch. Hardscaping around your garden means pushing wheelbarrows full of rocks or transporting bricks.

2. Better sleep. As a former night owl, I avoided getting up early. Driving to the gym to run on a treadmill was not an inspiring thought. However, beating the blazing summer afternoon sun to water my plants made me spring out of bed. Getting sunlight early while avoiding artificial lights at night helped reset my sleep cycle and naturally go to bed earlier. Not to mention it’s meditative to start your day by spending time with nature.

3. Mindful eating. Growing organic produce in your backyard helps you appreciate what you eat more than buying from a grocery store. Most of what’s in your grocery store has been transported, sometimes for hundreds or thousands of miles, losing nutrition along the way. Food tastes better when picked just minutes before consuming, and you can be sure of the quality. I also get much more enjoyment and savor the food I’ve grown myself. Gardening has helped me eliminate fast food from my diet, letting me opt, instead, for whole food snacks if I’m in a hurry.

4. Sustainability. I took heart in being less wasteful because I was lowering my carbon footprint and composting all organic ingredients instead of throwing them into the garbage. Those nutrients get recycled and end up in my soil to be used by the next season’s crop. The combination of growing my own vegetables and buying less packaged food means I regularly skip trash day.

5. Mind-body connection. The most underrated aspect of gardening is building something with your hands and using your mind while moving your body. You can get a better body in the gym, but stepping outside into my garden also gives me an instant feeling of happiness. I get enormous satisfaction from taking a seed through its entire life cycle. Overcoming the challenges that come with that process has expanded my creativity. These are benefits you can’t get solely by going to the gym.

If you’re thinking of starting your own garden, you can get your entire family involved as a fun weekend project. It’s hard to pull people away from their screens in today’s age, whether it’s the TV, computer, or phone. Use your yard as a convenient way for everyone to step outside and clear your mind from the constant scrolling on social media. You can teach your kids early to respect nature and show them the pride of nurturing a plant from seed to fruit, watching it grow at each stage.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my gardening experience, it’s that there is always work to accomplish. You can start at any time because it’s a long-term project that lasts for years. Maybe it’s adding a compost pile, a new planting area, or keeping weeds from overtaking your beds. Tackling these small tasks one at a time is the best way I’ve found to dampen any low-level anxiety I feel from our hyper-connected world. The outcome is a sense of fulfillment that you cannot get by only going to the gym.

If you’d like to live a healthier lifestyle and you have any outdoor space at all, even a small balcony, take advantage of it by growing fresh food for you and your family.

Ray DelVecchio is a South Jersey resident who started an organic vegetable garden in his backyard in 2015. Learn more at southjerseygarden.com.