Physical Activity When You’re Homebound
Even though I’ve spent the last several years very interested in diet and nutrition and doing much research on those topics, I’ve recently come to realize that I have completely missed the mark on the big picture of health myself.
I am a fairly sedentary person. I stay at home with my kids, do not have a membership to a gym and am not very athletic in general. This year, as I am refocusing my health efforts, I am starting to realize more and more that physical activity and a healthy diet truly go hand in hand when it comes to increasing your health by leaps and bounds. This may seem pretty obvious to most of you – but I have been single-mindedly focused for so long that I was shocked to realize how out of shape I have become!
So I have started incorporating a little bit of exercise into my routine and plan to increase it as I get fitter. I have decided to do different types of activity in order to keep my body challenged. I plan to join a gym soon and also pull out my running shoes again.
However, we have been snowed and iced in for the last several days and I haven’t gotten to leave my house at all. At first I was upset about this because I don’t have any exercise equipment at home and I was afraid that I would just give up and lose my momentum. But I finally decided to get (a little) creative and come up with some simple ways to keep moving at home. Here is what I’ve thought of and done:
1) Running (or walking quickly) up and down the stairs.
I was surprised at how difficult this was for me and what a good little workout it turned out to be. I plan to do this every other day until I can run up and down maybe 50 times effortlessly.
2) Doing housework
I posted awhile back about how housework as regular physical activity is actually good exercise and can lower your risk of breast cancer!
3) Jumping Jacks, Sit-ups, etc
My kids love to do these with me. Simple and fun.
4) Working out to a fitness DVD.
This might seem like a “duh” to everyone, but I have tended to avoid these because I hate most fitness videos. My husband and I have tried several of them and found many annoying and some impossible to keep up with. But I think we’ve found a keeper in The Biggest Loser Workout DVD! I highly recommend this one because it has a variety of workouts and levels, the trainer is nice and easy to understand, and everything is easy to keep up with. My 5-yr olds insisted on doing this one with me too and we all had fun together.
So there ya go. Hopefully you aren’t stuck indoors with no exercise equipment, but just in case you are, hopefully these ideas will help you get moving a little. I’d love more ideas if anyone has any!
Processing your request, Please wait....
