Being active outside the gym is something that is a must for me.  I love to lift weights and I love CrossFit, and now I’m trying to do yoga at least once a week, but sports are will always be my biggest passion. I’m a goalie in hockey and had a short stint playing some junior hockey when I was college before blowing out my knee and deciding to go for my education instead of trying to follow a false professional hockey dream.  Growing up I also played fastpitch softball, golf and rugby and as an adult I started  playing volleyball and football to stay active and healthy when I started my weight loss.  Volleyball was actually the first active thing I did to get active when I set my goal to lose weight. For the past few years I’ve been playing slopitch softball and it’s lots of fun, but I was really missing the competitiveness of fastpitch.  The ball barreling down on me from the pitcher, trying to make contact and get on base, what a feeling. It ends up that there’s a fastpitch league here in town and I decided to come out of a 15 year retirement and play.  Wow, what a difference from slopitch.  I didn’t fair out so well my first at bat, but it all came back to me fairly quickly and I ended up having a pretty great season with my team. This past weekend was the league finals and my team didn’t have enough players to enter so I joined up with one of the other teams and got to play with them.  We ended up losing in the semi-finals to the team who won the whole thing, but it was a great weekend of ball and it was a great end to the season. Playing sports or doing other activities besides working out in the gym is a great way to have an “active rest day” and mix up your routine.  I would never say that playing a sport or going for a walk or throwing the frisbee around is a replacement for a workout, but on your days off from the gym, it’s a great way to get your heart rate going and to be active. It’s also a fun way to interact with new people and make friends. You don’t have to be a pro athlete or even have played a sport before.  I had never played volleyball in my life when I joined the city league and now it’s one of my favorite things to do.  Most cities have recreational leagues that you can join with zero experience, all you have to do is contact them and see what they have to offer. My active rest days usually involve softball, fastpitch, volleyball, hockey, football or volleyball.  I do also workout on most of these days too, but sometimes, it’s just nice to take a day off from the gym and go throw the ball around. Do you play any sports? Do you have active rest days?  How do you get your heart rate up on days you’re not in the gym or pounding the pavement?...