Add Incidental Exercise To Your Day
You have to move your body. It's as simple as that. Your blood needs to circulate, your heart needs to have reason to pump and your lungs need to fill and empty. Quite apart from those basic health necessities, you also owe it to yourself to avoid stiffness, boredom and laziness.
What with remote controls, power steering, electric windows, automatic garage doors, elevators, cordless phones, electric toothbrushes and home delivery, is it any wonder we're all asking - or hearing - “Does my bum look big in this?”
Make Time
Even in periods when you can't muster the time, or even perhaps the energy for a long walk, an aerobics session or a yoga lesson, you can still make the effort to insert little snippets of incidental exercise several times a day.
- Stand up whenever you think of it: Instead of languishing in immobility at your desk for hours on end, stand and have a good stretch.
- Take the stairs: Ok, it's an oldie but it's definitely a goodie. Walking up a couple of flights of stairs instead of taking the elevator won't kill you, so give it a try. And there's no excuse for taking the elevator down!
- Fewer bags, more trips: When you arrive home with armloads of groceries, don't try to carry them all at once like a packhorse. That places unnecessary strain on your back and shoulders and all you're really doing is trying to avoid making extra trips. It's a far better idea to make more trips, carrying fewer bags. It's better on your back and exercises your legs more.
- Cancel deliveries: Is it really that difficult to go to the shop and get the paper? Cancel the newspaper delivery and go out yourself. Not only will you be moving your body, but you'll also have to get dressed to go out so your morning preparation will be done, with the incentive of the paper to read. Even if you drive there because it's too far, you're still ahead in terms of exercise and readiness for your day.
- Give the dryer a break: Take advantage of that free-of-charge sunshine and hang the clothes on the line instead of loading the dryer. You'll bend, stretch and absorb valuable Vitamin D.
- Lose the remote control: The remote control is one of the single biggest reasons behind our sedentary lifestyle. Not only do we spend too much time watching TV but we don't even get up off the couch to change the channel! Try putting the remote up out of arm's reach so you have to move a muscle or two.
- Park further away: Shopping center car parks are notorious for trolley bumps anyway so do yourself, and your car, a favor by parking in no-man's-land. If you have a lot of purchases to carry, you can always use a trolley … and then return it to the store.
- Get down and play with the kids: Whatever the kids are doing, it's virtually guaranteed that they'll enjoy it even more if you do it with them. Roll around, crawl, climb and run.
- Dance through the housework: Put on some music with a good beat and groove while you do your housework.
