Healthy Living by Kirstie_McIntosh

The buzz in London right now is phenomenal and whether you love it or loathe it the Olympics are coming. And with just two days to go until the 2012 Games kick off you can’t help but join in the sporting chat and chip in your thoughts on possible race times, the new team hopefuls and who might be one of this summer’s sporting scandals.

So, with all this talk about sport you’d think the world and the UK would be swapping their lazy boy slouch pants for some cycling shorts or swimming lycra. Yet, it seems we’re all doing the opposite. A recent study undertaken by FitBrit found that 14 per cent of British men think that they will do less exercise this year than they managed to do last year. And after chatting with my girlfriends they seem to think that they too won’t be hitting the gym as much in 2012.

The study also found that although the guys will be watching the Olympics they will be doing so from the comfort of their couches, with a sixth of British men admitting to spending four hours watching sport on TV every day and a whopping five per cent of British guys saying they will watch more than 42 hours a week. In 42 hours you could train for one of the events – I’m not kidding.

Well, although that little goal of becoming an Olympian is out of reach for most of us (at least for this year’s comp) if you’re going to watch TV for that long every day you may as well make the most of your slouch time and multitask. If you want to watch the Games and feel productive try out some of these tasks whilst watching that 100m final:

Watch and vacuum

If you’re house needs a spruce vacuum and dust whilst you watch the events. If you clean for an hour you should burn around 86 calories (355 kilojoules).

Watch and workout

Get some resistance bands for your marathon TV sessions and exercise for the length of every other event you watch (although the marathon is probably not the greatest event to try this out on).

Watch and iron

Sort out your wardrobe and give all of your clothes a good iron whilst you check out the hot beach volleyball Olympians. 75 calories (313 kilojoules) are burnt every time you iron for an hour.

If you multitask in this way, even if you don’t watch TV for 42 hours a week, just think what you can tick off your never ending to-do-list.