With so many exercise routines, methodologies, and recommendations, when you first get started, it can be overwhelming to figure out where to start.
The best place to start is with the exercise you’ll actually do—and in most cases, that’s the type of exercise or physical activity you enjoy!
It could be playing sports, doing yoga, or taking long walks and hikes.
Either way,moving your body is moving your body, andany type of movement is better than none!
Furthermore, when we start moving our bodies, we begin to realise that it’s what our bodies are meant to do.
Our bodies are meant to move.
And move in various ways:
Walk, run, sprint, lift, jump, pull, push, press, squat, lunge, etc.
You get the point.
Yet we’ve become so sedentary that we’ve forgotten this phenomenon, which, over time, has led to our ability to move being so vastly decreased that now, many struggle to even take a 20-minute walk.
It’s that famous old saying coming true…
“If you don’t use it, you lose it.”
This saying might sound cliché, but it’s cliché for a reason—because it’s true and holds so much wisdom, yet we dismiss it.
When, in fact, if we acted on it, our lives would most likely bea lot better and healthier in more ways than one!
I say all of this not to diminish people’s current physical capabilities or shame them, but toacknowledge where we are as a society.
Because if we cannot acknowledge where we are,how can we truly move forward, improve, and change the direction of human health?
Acknowledgement and awareness are always the first steps in any change, and without them, change does not occur.
I think it’s more than fair to say thatchange is needed when it comes to the direction of human health. And while I could back that up with facts, stats, and research, I think the best research is to simply take a look out of our windows into our communities and neighbourhoods.
We would clearly see that as a society,we are moving less and eating more, which is contributing to theobesity crisis, and more people aresocially disconnected than ever before!
We’re morestressed, anxious, and overwhelmed most of the time—and all of this is contributing to therise of chronic disease and ill health!
One of the antidotes to this societal challenge that we can all do is simple:
Start moving a little bit more by adding more movement into our daily lives.
Some quick and easy ways to do this that I utilise are:
- Parking further away from my destination, such as the store 🏪
- Always taking the stairs instead of the elevator 🛗
- Taking walking phone calls and meetings most of, if not all, of the time 📞
There are many other ways to increase our movement levels, but these are some of thequickest, easiest, and simplest ways I’ve found that we can do around our daily lives.
At the end of the day, I believe two phenomena hold to be true:
- Moving more is hardly ever a bad idea.
- The best type of exercise and movement is the one that you will do.
Here’s to moving more, increasing our life expectancy, and living a healthier life as a result. 👊
REMINDERS
1.
Sit less, move more.
2.
The hard thing to do is often the right thing to do.
3.
Be the change you want to see in the world.