Recently I have become unbelievably busy. I felt like I was already a pretty busy lady, but it turns out I didn’t really know what busy meant. I even had to arrange a girlfriend to give me a lift to school so we could hang out in the car. During said car ride, my girlfriend said to me, “This is great Sarah, now you are in the same boat as all your clients, it’s your turn to see how easy it is to work out every day.” Sometimes this friend drives me crazy with her truths but this time, I had to concur. Turns out I am in the same boat as many of the people I work with; I am tired, stressed out, overworked, underpaid, sleep deprived, hungry and without even a shred of motivation to work out in the evenings. Sound familiar?
Well guess what? I have found a solution and I invite you all to join me. Get ready for it: I am making my life my workout.
Who ever said that working out has to be in a gym, in certain clothes, with a certain kind of music and a certain kind of energy? A workout is anything that gets you in your body, and gets you moving. Sure it’s great to go to a spin class or run in the park or lift weights in the gym but some weeks that just isn’t gonna happen, and you are doing yourself no good sitting around and whining about it. I certainly wasn’t doing me any good.
I know that right about now you are wondering whether the rest of this article is going to consist of me imploring you to take the stairs and yes, that is part of it, but it is so much more than just the stairs. First you have to want it. That’s that hardest part, it’s way harder than just parking farther away or doing push-ups during commercial breaks. Think about how difficult it is to get to the gym, it’s going to be just as hard to garner up the moxie to do squats in the elevator, but if you’re struggling with time, then you best get over that real quick. In the good old days (thousands of years ago) people didn’t workout, they lived and life made them fit. Take example from your ancestors and join me in making your life your workout.
The following are a list of little habits that can build up to make a big difference.
Set your alarm for 10 minutes earlier and stretch in bed before you wake up. Hug your knees, drop them side to side, hold behind your legs and try to straighten them, roll over and cat/cow etc, etc. The list is endless. If it feels good, do it. Get the blood moving in the morning. Here is a link to get you started. http://www.fitsugar.com/3773451?page=0,0,0
While brushing your teeth, stand on one foot, practicing your balance.
Lower yourself slowly onto the toilet, pressing through your heels. If you are in a public toilet and don’t want to sit down, then lift your arms, tighten your core and hold in the yoga pose, uttkatasana (chair pose).http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/493
Take the stairs EVERYWHERE. At the MUNI station, the BART station, the mall, the movies and the office. It’s been said before, because it works. The reason you hate walking up stairs is because it’s hard. It’s hard because you don’t do it. If you did it more, it would get easier and you would get fitter.
Walk everywhere and anywhere you can. Walk to work, walk to get coffee, walk to drop off the dry-cleaning, walk to the restaurant. Try and add it in whenever you can.
Drink water all day long so you have to pee lots and are forced to WALK to the bathroom and SQUAT over the loo.
Offer to restock the copy paper in your office. Walk to the storage room and use proper lifting technique to make trips with stacks of paper.http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/back-pain/LB00004_D
Don’t bring all your groceries into the house in one trip. Walk or jog back to the car and take one bag at a time, lifting slowly and using your muscles.
Use cues. Every time I see a red car, I remind myself to drop my shoulders, stand up tall and engage my core muscles. Every time spam mail pops into your inbox, take three deep breaths and contract your abdominals or walk around your office.
Move during the commercials. You could do push-ups, dips, lunges, squats, crunches etc. Who hasn’t seen an article in a magazine at some point in their life telling them to try this?
In the car every time you are stopped at a stoplight, squeeze your butt muscles. Try and lift your butt off the seat just by tensing those muscles.
While waiting for the bus or spacing off in a meeting, visualize using your muscles, tighten up the muscles in your arms or legs or back or abs and imagine flexing them. Just cueing our minds into using our muscles will make us stronger, less prone to injury and more prone to using them in the future.
When you are making lunch or dinner and you are waiting for water to boil or the microwave to buzz, do pushups or the plank against the wall.
Stretch in your chair, RIGHT NOW. Lift up your arms over your head, inhale feeling every muscle in your body and exhale bringing everything back down. You feel better already, don’t you?
I am sure you can all come up with about a million more things you can do in order to make your life your workout and I would love to hear about them. Please email me and let me know what you’re doing.
Be Good to your Body, it’s where you live
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