What Can 5 Minutes Do for Your Health?
Start your day with stretches or a walk.
Actually walk the dog instead of just letting it out.
Play with you rkids
Park further away
Take the stairs instead of the elevator
Make multiple trips - be less efficient!
When it comes to "getting healthier" or "getting in better shape," there's a major emphasis on diet and nutrition. That makes sense, because we typically eat 3+ times each day, while only the most dedicated athletes need to exercise that frequently!
But that's also part of the problem.
Many people seeking to "get in shape" or lose weight will focus on the "right" diet, what not to eat, and eating less food, less often.
What if, instead of decreasing our food intake, we paid more attention to increasing our movement?
That's the part a lot of people don't want to deal with. Much easier to pay money to a diet program that keeps you feeling hungry and low-energy all the time than...actually eat food and get up off the couch.
Even people who pay for personal training and have made a commitment to improving their fitness often only step into the gym when they have a session scheduled, which is at most about 1% of their week.
The good news is you don't have to go to the gym and formally exercise for your movement to count.
In fact, it would be totally unrealistic and unhealthy for most of us to get the majority of our movement from official exercise!
Dr. John Berardi, the founder of Precision Nutrition, posted a fantastic graphic on his Instagram page over the weekend showing how our movement has changed over the last hundred years:
It's not surprising -- as technology increased and made our lives easier and more efficient, humans started moving way, way less.
The definition of "efficient" is: "achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense."
Minimum wasted time and effort is great for getting stuff done. Not so great for keeping us active and healthy.
Remember -- energy expenditure = calorie burn. By making our daily tasks easier, we're expending less energy to do them aka burning fewer calories.
When it comes to getting fitter or losing body fat, we need to be less efficient. We need to move more.
The little things add up: Parking further away. Going to the grocery store or Target and shopping rather than ordering for pick-up or delivery. Making multiple trips in from the car instead of trying to carry everything in one trip.
The more you can move in small ways throughout your day, the more energy you'll expend.
This week, how can YOU incorporate more movement into your everyday activities?
