Use It Or Lose It!
Being Mindful of Including Physical Activity Into Your Day
“Use it or lose it!”
Adding physical activity to your day is simple as long as you are mindful of it, otherwise, our wonderful world of automation will always win over and gradually rob you of your physical abilities without you even realizing it. I’ve listed some suggestions here to help you in making some very simple changes that you can live with. Once these seemingly simple little things become part of your mindset, all will change. So allow me to make a few suggestions to help you out. Pay particular attention to number 7.
I would suggest you……..
1. Stop looking for the closest parking spot to the front entrance of whatever building you are visiting. Whether it’s just shopping at a mall, a grocery store, doctor’s appointment, anywhere, especially the gym! Walking for a minute or two won’t kill you. As a matter of fact, it may save your life one day. From now on, try this, especially on a nice day: Before you arrive at your destination, think about parking a few blocks away and walking rather than looking for the closest parking spot to the door, which we can all agree comes automatically, so mindfulness here is key.
2. Go for a walk at lunch time rather than sit around doing nothing.
3. Take the stairs instead of the elevator if you are just going up or down a few flights. You should always know where the stairs are anyway, in case of emergency. I hear a lot from people saying that as they get older, they start having a bit of a difficult time going up stairs. My response is and always will be, “that’s because you avoid stairs whenever you can.” Don’t be afraid of a physical challenge, no matter what it is because if you continue to avoid those physical challenges, they will inevitably go from challenging to impossible.
4. Avoid sitting for more than 30 minutes at a time. Get up, walk around, stretch a bit. If your job requires you to be at a desk for hours each day, it doesn’t mean you have to sit. I’m sure you can stand and talk on the phone or read just as well as you can seated. If you are waiting for a meeting to start or a conference to begin, stand up and wait, because soon enough, you will likely have to be sitting for quite a while.
5. After a snowfall, use a shovel whenever it is reasonable instead of a snow blower.
6. During grass cutting season, use a push mover instead of a riding mover whenever and where ever it is reasonable. I’ve seen with my own eyes people using riding lawn mowers on a yard that is so small it is bordering on ridiculous. The biggest challenge for the user is turning around in such a small space. Laughable sometimes.
7. *Get to the gym and do strength training at least twice a week. One hour twice a week is nothing. Just do it. It’ll change your life. Most people I know of that have bought their own exercise equipment to make it more convenient to work out at home usually end up not using it at all and research proves it. Don’t waste your money. You can join our club for many years with proper guidance included, with more machines and weights than you can shake a stick at, and all maintained by us, for what you will pay for one cardio machine and a few weights for home that will just end up taking up space.
8. Avoid automation whenever possible and practical. For instance, if you use an I-robot to vacuum your floors you are either a very busy person who wants to keep their floors clean, or a very lazy person. Don’t be the lazy person.
Advice like this advice can sometimes seem a bit simplistic, but if you don’t keep these things in mind, you will inevitably fall into the trap of automation and laziness. You have to realize that the human body is designed to be physically active always, performing physically challenging tasks daily and as technology continues to create the “easy way out”, we will continue to become physically incapable of performing physically challenging tasks earlier and earlier in our lives thus resulting in premature aging, early onset of unfortunate health issues and early demise. Even if you are predisposed to longevity from good genetics and modern medication, who would want to live all of those extra years if you are not able to enjoy them because you have become fully dependent on help from others, usually strangers, to get you dressed, feed you, clean you etc.? Not me. You get the picture. The only way to combat that from happening is that we must purposely include physical activity, especially strength training, into our daily lives to ensure we do not lose our physical abilities sooner than we should.
The importance of visiting a health club regularly cannot be understated, and is primarily for the benefit of strength training, the “challenging” part of physical activity that you can’t get from climbing stairs, biking, vacuuming, cutting grass, gardening etc. The gym is, simply put, a simulator that is taking the place of the challenging physical activities that are no longer part of our daily lives because of automation.
“Use it or lose it!”
See you at the gym.
Gino
