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Don’t let this happen to you. Maintaining physical health into old age is very do-able, as well as beneficial. And contrary to how people often do it, to achieve positive results you don’t have to embark on a sudden weight-lifting blitz or run a marathon. Consistent and moderate daily exercise is all you need to do.
The more you make these activities a part of your life, the easier they are to fit in and do. It’s like brushing your teeth. You get up, you brush your teeth, you move on with your day. You don’t question whether you have time to brush your teeth or if you can put off brushing them until tomorrow. You just brush them.
Let your daily physical activities become just as much a part of your day as eating, sleeping, and brushing the teeth.
Moving your body through various full ranges of motion is a great way to keep and gain flexibility. Gentle yoga, tai chi, chi gung, pilates, and other stretches and movements are all effective ways to keep the joints healthy and mobile. Many of these activities also help to strengthen certain muscles as they stretch others, so you’re getting twice the benefit from your chosen activity.
The ultimate addition to your active lifestyle is aerobic exercise, an activity you’ll want to add for its heart and lung health enhancing effects. One of the best and easiest ways to achieve aerobic exercise is to go for a walk. But if walking outside in the winter isn’t for you, try walking inside, either on a treadmill or wherever your local winter walking program runs.
Other great ways to get in your aerobic exercise include, cycling, cross-country skiing, snow shoeing, hiking, running, jogging, swimming, dancing, and paddling, pretty much any activity that gets your main muscles moving and your heart rate elevated.
Check in with your doctor before beginning an exercise program. Always listen to your body. If what you’re doing hurts or is uncomfortable, then stop doing the activity or modify what you’re doing. You want your body to become like a strong, pliant, smoothly moving spring. No weak spots or painful breakdowns necessary.
If you make a thirty-minute walk, at least five days a week, part of your life, along with your favourite stretching and strengthening program, you’re well on your way to achieving a body that may end up being stronger, healthier, and leaner that it was in your youth.
Fitness facts:
- The best exercise is the exercise you’ll do.
- Most people think a short walk here and there will make no difference, so they don’t walk. The truth is it all counts. The walking adds up and is never wasted! So don’t worry how short your jaunt, just put on your walking shoes and get moving.
- Because muscle movement helps move lymph fluid, exercise helps keep your lymphatic system working well. This means you get a boost to your immune system.
- If you get computer or book head, that cotton-in-the-head sensation you get with brainwork, exercise will help get you back to feeling vital and alive again.
- Feeling down? Exercise floods the body with endorphins, which makes you feel excellent.
- Have you added a few pounds and are cringing at the thought of dieting? Don’t. Instead, exercise the fat away and feel good in knowing that at the same time you are upgrading your body systems to be much better at fat burning all the time.
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Photo Credit: Asif Akbar
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