Healthy holiday shopping

You don't have to let your body go to sloth while you do your holiday shopping. Here are five tips for making shopping healthy.

1. Testing one, two, three.

Not in the market for fitness equipment? Don't let that keep you from testing it. Glare at the kid playing on the display treadmill or elliptical machine until he gets off. Then slip off your pumps and step on - until somebody glares you off.

2. Remember the tightens.

As you stand in line, or wait for a parking space at the far end of the lot (that's where all the exercise gurus tell you to park, right?), tighten your abs or glutes. Nobody's watching.

3. Save calories for dinner, Pumpkin.

Mmm. Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Creme smells yummy. Only catch: A 16-ounce grande made with 2 percent milk and whipped cream can set you back 400 calories. Cut it down by half: Skip the whip, sub skim milk and shrink the size to a 12-ounce tall.

4. Armed and dangerous.

Shopping online? While you're waiting for the "order complete" to pop up, put your hands on the seat of your chair. Scoot your fanny off the edge; bend your elbows to lower and raise it. Voila!

Taut triceps.

5. Bottoms up.

Buy only products on the bottom shelf; do squats to retrieve them. So what if your gifts are covered with spider webs and the milkman gets a Cabbage Patch doll? Your thighs are tight; what else could possibly matter? *