Welcome to Small Steps to Health where we do not take orders from a cookie!
A fellow blogger asked the question of how much activity do you get outside of a gym. Like Sagan, it has been a while since I was last in a gym. I know it was before my car accident, maybe 4 years?
All the junk in my trunk
I a own large collection of exercise dvds, 2 aerobic steps (I always had this idea of hosting a step class in my living room with one of my younger sisters),4 sets of dumbbells, 3 sets of gym-in-box exercise bands (don’t ask me why I keep buying them when I rarely use them), a ball, a yoga mat, a Pilates ring, an elliptical machine, a weighted body bar, and my collection of Wii exercise games. Then you got to throw in the gadgets like my pedometer and heart rate monitors (that’s a plural) and the health books. There is a reason why my husband asked me to include “not cluttering our house with too many books or exercise equipment” in our wedding vows.
Activities I do regularly
I would feel bad about spending my money on all this exercise stuff if I do not use them. But that is just 0.5-1 hour of focus exercise each day. But activity that Sagan is asking is the little every day things that adds up to a healthy lifestyle. The following is a list of things I always do:
I always park a couple rows further in the parking lot even when there are plenty of spots up front.
Dates with my husband always involve a walk around a park or bowling.
I always take the stairs (my limit is three stories).
I always take walks at work, logging in 2 miles per day on average. When it rains, I find an excuse to wander around the building.
Because I usually do these little things (where I do not even break a sweat) it is easy for me to log 10,000 steps on pedometer. Do all these things make me super fit? Nope, but at least I am not wheezing after 2 flights of stairs. It is these little things that will keep me bowling at 85 years old like one of my bowling partners.
Until next time and thanks for stopping.
Photo by: jonboy mitchell.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
“at least I am not wheezing after 2 flights of stairs.” Exactly! I used to live on the 6th floor of a condo building so I”d walk up the stairs several times a day, often carrying groceries etc. Nowadays I live on the first floor in my apartment, so when I have class on the fifth floor and I”m walking all the way up there from the basement, I find that by the time I get to the top I”m a little bit breathless. It”s amazing how just a couple extra flights of stairs can do it for you.
Thanks for the shout out! It”s so important that we find a way to get that lifestyle activity into our days.
Sagan – I known people that start complaining about walking up the staircase on their house after a decade or two living there. It does not have to be that way. If we continue to make our daily lives easier, the wheezing we hear is not from aging, but from not moving. Thanks for the comment.