Increase Your Activity

How many of you started this year with huge enthusiasm, to get fit, lose weight and join a gym?

How many of you have achieved your target after four months - lost weight, got fit and are STILL going to the gym regularly?! Mmmm. What happened? I bet you got bored or lost your motivation.

I was talking to a client yesterday about getting fit and healthy. Exercise without a sense of purpose quickly creates boredom - especially for them. However, creating additional activity in every day by changing the way you do things, seems more purposeful and enables you to increase your daily activity without the need to join a gym, pounding the treadmill and pumping weights. Something which rapidly turns people off exercising regularly, to say nothing of wasting the monthly membership fee.

Today, for the first time - I cycled to my local supermarket. It's not the one I usually use but it took me all of three minutes and probably would have taken at least double that if I'd driven, because it's probably twice as far going along the road. OK, I could only buy as much as I could fit in my rucksack but it saved a short distance car journey, gave me a a few minutes of exercise and carrying 8-9kg (18-19lbs) of shopping back home made it that much harder work. It gave me a sense of what it would be like to be that much overweight! Phew - imagine carrying THAT much extra weight around ALL the time!

I'd already cycled down the road earlier this week for a business meeting and cycled to the doctors. I walk to the post box - five minutes down the road or walk or cycle to the post office. I regularly walk up to the local shop - ten minutes through the park.

How could you change your daily routine to increase your overall activity?