Life is challenging as it is. We have tons of things to do at work and home. Life has become so hectic that the majority of us doesn’t have much time left (or we think we don’t) to do any physical activity. We spent our days sitting in a car, bus or at work in front of a desk. When we get a chance to do any physical activity we don’t embrace this opportunity. What do we do? We look for alternatives like elevators, escalators, phones, whatapp, etc.. to help us out. What we don’t realize is that the more days goes by without physical activities, the higher the risk to acquire deceases like obesity, diabetes, heart disease and the likes. To stay in line with the YPG philosophy we will focus on a weight loss item, because we want people to feel healthy, energetic and comfortable in their skin.
“Sitting is sort of the new smoking,” Mayo Clinic endocrinologist James Levine, M.D., Ph.D., told the Star Tribune.
Let me tell you what I see people do daily to avoid physical activity. Lets start at our schools in the morning. You see people park their cars almost inside the school yard to drop their kids off. At some schools it got so bad, that they had to barricade the yard doors so the parents wouldn’t get their cars parked on the school yards. At the supermarket people would like to park in front of the door entrance or at least as close as possible. I would say if they could park their cars in one of the store aisle it would be even better. You see them making loops in the parking lot until they get their desired spot. Sometimes they just park in the handicap area like nothing happen. At work you see this same phenomena. At the office they take the lift to go to the next floor. Many stores and restaurants created drive thru service to cater this bad habit, and the list goes on and on.
No wonder if we look around today, we see more and more people with an obesity problem. This is because we eat more (allot of snacks and sweets between meals) and we move less. Our focus today will be about what can we do to get our 30 minutes of daily physical activity. According to the Mayo Clinic we need at least 150 minutes a week of moderate physical activity to keep us in good health. That is about the 30 minutes a day if we are talking about business days only. Moderate physical activities includes for example such activities as walking, swimming, cleaning the car(s) and house. If you want to lose weight or meet specific fitness goals, you may need to exercise more.
So here we go….
I’ll say we start up our day with 2 glasses (4 is better, see Japanese Water Therapy) of water. This is as soon as you wake up. Don’t brush your teeth, don’t eat. This is a good way to purify your internal system. Have your glasses of water next to your bed and make it a habit to drink up before doing anything else. Water will hydrate you, and kick-off your metabolism. Yes….metabolism, that thing that help you speed up the calorie burning process. Next go and do your morning thing. Have your tea, coffee or smoothie. I would go for the smoothie because it will give you a good amount of minerals and vitamins your body needs to go through your day. The more energy you have, the more physical activity you can do, the more calories you can burn. Have your breakfast, and off you go.
Now if you have kids don’t park your car in or close to the school entrance. Remember the kids need to exercise too. If you have to walk your kids to school, you need to park your car with some distance (50-100m) from the school. Let say you get 5 min walk to, and 5 min back to your car. You just had a 10 minutes exercise.
Do you need to buy a fruit bowl and some beverage before you go to work? Park your car again with some distance from the store. Another 10 min, this add up to 20 minutes.
Repeat the same at work. Add another 5 minute to the office door. We are up to 25 minutes of physical activity already, and it is not even noon yet.
If you take the bus to work, what about you get out a stop or two before your stop?
Take the stairs to your desk, and leave the lift alone. This is if you have a lift in your office. Take five minutes every hour to go for a 5 minute walk through the office. If you have stairs, go up and down a couple of times. Eight hour a day means 8X5=40 minutes. We are already up to 65 minutes of physical activity. To give this an extra kick you can even set up a competition between your colleagues. Who can reach 100 steps by the end of the week? By making it a friendly competition, you’ll be more likely to stick to the goals.
If you have a questions for an office colleague don’t call or email them. Walk to their desk and back. Add about 15 more minutes here to get to 80 minutes.
Drink allot of water during the day as this will keep you hydrated, make your skin glow, renew cells, lose weight, purify the colon, cures illnesses & diseases and it will let you go frequently to the toilet. If you have to go to the toilet don’t go to the next door toilet, but go to the furthers one from your desk. Lets add here another 20 minutes. 100 minutes of activity.
After work walk back to your car another 5 minutes. At the end of the working day, excluding lunch break, we have been active about 105 minutes that day. This is about 7 km walk.
Invest in a good pedometer. Nowadays we all have smart phones and we can use these, to set daily activity goals to track our progress.This article “Choose the best pedometer app for your Android or iPhone” can help you choose the best pedometer app for your android or iPhone. I use S Health from Samsung. I personally find it very good (and it’s free) as you have many options to set-up different goals (e.g. active, steps, weight, etc..) and it is very simple to use.
According to an Australian clinical trial, by walking 10,000 steps (about 90 minutes) a day and working out in the gym three times a week (if you can) you can add five years to your lifespan in the process. As a bonus you can have your weight in control as you will burn lots of calories through the process.
Please consider to move more, and see if you can build up a routine. It will benefit you greatly, and depending on your goal it can bring you many benefits. For example, combine this routine with your weight loss diet. You don’t have to start big, but take little steps. The little steps in the long run will have a big impact on your health. Don’t stop, don’t give up, keep going!!
P.S. Alternatively you can cycle to work and we would solve the entire physical activity problem.