For the small percentage of people that wake up excited about the numerous ways to burn calories, this is not for you.
Many of my clients suffer from the disease I like to call, “cardiovascular activity takes too much time and absolutely sucks more than poking myself directly in the eye.” Okay so maybe that isn’t an actual medical disease, but it still lies prominent in this big ol’ country of America. I am singling out America because many other countries use walking and stairs instead of cars and elevators. Plus, we are the biggest country (and I am not talking fulfilling, fabulous, big.)
Yes, we procrastinate, make up excuses, injure ourselves, and joke about our slacking in the movement department, but guess what, “The only things in life that don’t move are dead!” I don’t remember where I read that quote but I like to annoy my clients with it daily. But here is the bottom line—we need to move more. End of story and here is how.
Create four categories of movement: one being so easy you can barely call it moving, and the last being as hard as getting your butt kicked by me. You want to create four levels of activity and do one of them everyday for fifteen minutes (or whatever number you want to start with.) Here is the thing, you don’t have to work that hard to reap the benefits. That’s right, you don’t have to work that hard at all, just move more!
My four levels go something like this:
A. Running or intense strength circuits
B. Weights (slower paced) or bike
C. Yoga or walking (slow paced)
D. Stretching while watching TV or twirling my pen while reading
If one of your choices includes going somewhere (like a gym or a park), take baby steps. Let’s use the gym as an example. For the first four days, you are just going to drive to the gym and sit in your car. Don’t get out, trust me! The next four days you are going to drive to the gym, go in and walk or ride the bike, stretch something ridiculously easy for 5-10 minutes ... and then leave! The next four days you can do something a little harder and so on.... The idea is here is to build habits. You will start getting in the habit of just driving to the gym and what do people say is the hardest part of working out? Getting there! Then it’s easy!
