You know you need to start exercising but you just don’t have a clue where to start. It’s a really common situation to be in – what should I do? What’s going to be effective? What’s safe for me to do? I don’t have anything that I enjoy.
Here’s where you should start… Walking.
Walking is what we were designed to do. We’re bipedal human beings and are designed to do lots and lots of daily low-level exercise, which is essentially walking.
It’s Walk To Work Day on 5th April, so you’ve got a little bit of motivation and incentive to do that. You could jump on the train a stop later, jump off the train a stop earlier, ditch the car for the day and walk. Just try to be more active and hack your commute in some way so you can get some more steps in.
The reason I’m such a big fan of walking is I think it’s one of the most underappreciated elements of fitness. When we talk about fitness we tend to think about squats, lunges, athletic type of exercises – which a lot of people can’t relate to. Walking is a key part, even for me as a recreational athlete, of my fitness regime. It’s what underpins just about everything I do, so I will walk a lot every day.
I’ll do a little bit of moderately intensity exercise. It could be just a fast walk, it could be a light jog. Then I’ll do occasional bursts of high intensity activity. You might not be there just yet so start with walking. Aim to do around 5,000 steps if you don’t walk very much, 10,000 steps if you already do bits of walking – it’s really the foundation of fitness. 10,000 steps can be quite a lot to get done, particularly if you have a conventional office job or a desk job.
So get inspired with the Walk To Work Day. Lots of other people will hopefully be doing the same thing. Maybe that’s the point at which you can really motivate yourself to get started, but really for now focus on walking – different paces and different distances and different intensity of walking. It’s a key part of fitness!
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What’s your Health IQ?
If you’re reading this, you might be in reasonably senior position, running your own business or have a busy life running the home and juggling other responsibilities. Either way, you’re busy!
The convergent pressures of work and family life have probably meant that the time you did have to spend on health and fitness has disappeared. Why not talk to us and see how we can help.
Leanne Spencer is an entrepreneur, coach, TEDx Speaker, author of Remove the Guesswork, and founder of Bodyshot Performance Limited. Bodyshot is a health and fitness consultancy that helps busy professionals get more energy by removing the guesswork around their health, fitness and nutrition. Visit www.bodyshotperformance.com or email info@bodyshotperformance.com to register your interest in our services and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
