Dec share

It can be easy for your exercise routine to annoy or even insult other people. You have to interrupt the Sunday lie-in with your sweetheart to go for a run, you can't go for a drink after work because you're off to the gym, and you can't join your best friend for a birthday drink as you have a big race the next day.

Here's a way to burn calories and keep friends and family happy: decorating. If, like me, you find yourself at a stage in your life where lots of the people you know are moving house, nominate yourselves as their decorators.

Myself and the boy did this for my cousin, his lovely wife and "Bumpy" last weekend and not only was it rewarding to be able to do something helpful for them, but it was also great fun.

Add to this the fact that over the weekend we did about 14 hours of decorating, which according to this calorie output calculator means I burned a total of 4628 calories, and you'll begin to understand just how beneficial this can be. Okay so we may have ever so slightly offset this output with pancakes and choccy biccies, but workers have got to keep well fuelled!

Photo by pseudoplacebo