start here: exercise
Implementing activity and exercise into everyday life is probably the hardest lifestyle modification to become consistent with. Who isn’t busy with work, kids, and general life obligations? Most often finding time exercise is almost never a lack of knowledge, but usually a lack of priorities. We know what we have to do, but how the heck do we get ourselves to do it?
This article is not going to tell you to go join a gym or buy the newest program/equipment on social media. My goal is to purely focus on getting starting is to hopefully bring a new perspective in regards to physical activity and exercise that will help set the foundation for future endeavors.
PERSPECTIVE # 1
There is no such thing as a healthy sedentary individual. In fact, two of the most important longevity predictors are ones’ social interactions followed by their level of fitness. If we want to be able to walk up a flight of stairs at age 80 without assistance of fear of falling, we need to start working on this now. It will require cardiopulmonary fitness, strength of the lower body, and most importantly balance. Wanting to get up off the ground easily after playing with kids. Yes, that takes strength and balance. Its easy to get caught up in the minutia, but ultimately if you want to be able to function later in life without assistance, we have to taking time or it now. I like this perspective because its focusing on what you want (quality of life in future years) rather than what you don’t want ( illness, injury, disease, ect)
PERSPECTIVE #2
A VERY large number of our best memories involve activity. Think back to your favorite memory – what physically were you doing? Was it walking with your family or friends? Standing at a counter while baking with a loved one? Playing a sport with your child? To be able to create those memories we must be functional. Again, focusing our “why” on being physically able to gain the experience and memories helps establish a solid foundation to leverage excuses and setbacks in the future.
HOW TO GET STARTED
Find a way to make activity an important part of your life. I didn’t say exercise, but just simply activity. Once you’ve set the foundation of why you want to add this to your life, start by JUST MOVING YOUR BODY MORE. Take the stairs, park a little further away, impromptu dance parties, walk to get your mail instead of stopping in your car on the way in. Any movement counts. This can go for EVERYONE whether you are sedentary or have a regular exercise program. Moving more = more calories burned. Anything is better than nothing.
My goal was to provide you with a new perspective on exercise and activity just to get you thinking about the importance of this in your life and what it means to you. There will be more to come on how to combat excuses and design plans, but for now we just set the foundation.
