Daily Activity Recommendations Anyone Can Do!

When it comes to staying “active” in this age of Zoom calls, virtual schooling, quarantines (or as most of us will from now on will simply refer to as “2020”), a lot of people have felt stuck in place more than normal. The good news is that activity isn’t about going to the gym or setting aside an hour to sweat in order to be healthy…so here are some easy ways that you can get rid of those “Covid-19” pounds you may have put on in recent months!

Make Excuses?!

Yes, you heard that right. We are giving you permission to make excuses for yourself! In order to improve circulation, detoxification and even weight loss, you’ll need to start making excuses to get up from the desk or couch more often. Ideally, we need about 5 minutes of continual movement per hour to circulate nutrition to our tissues and metabolic wastes away from those tissues; so getting up at least once per waking hour to do so will help. I advise my clients to use a standard 8 ounce glass for their water needs because then it gives you an excuse to get up and get a refill more frequently (rather than a large jug that promotes staying put longer). Instead of going to the bathroom closest to your office, try using the one that’s furthest away to get those extra steps in while giving yourself plausible deniability in case someone uses it right after you! Also, when leaving the house, make a concerted effort to park further away from your destination to add a couple minutes on each side of the trip to bump up that circulation. These may not seem like a lot, but over the course of a day these minutes definitely add up.

Use a Lifestyle Tracker or Your Phone Timer

Most step trackers keep a running log of how many steps you’ve accrued over the day, but the best ones will give you alerts also. I personally recommend Garmin’s Vivo- series normally because they vibrate if you’ve been stationary for too long, but FitBit, the iWatch series and others have their own ways of keeping you on track also. Choosing the right tracker for you is addressed in our previous article, but for these purposes any one that shows a running step total for the day will suffice. Even if you don’t have a tracker, simply using the graphic below and your phone timer can get you an approximation of the right amount of steps every hour depending on your daily goal.

The chart assumes about 14 hours of regular wake time, 2 hours of wind down time in the evening (without many steps) and 8 hours of sleep; so most people can use these hourly milestones for their personal step goals. To maintain normal health, you usually need at least 10,000 steps per day, but most people averaged less than 6,000 in the US (even before Covid). Working your way up to the 10,000 is one of the easiest ways you can improve your overall health, so definitely make that a goal for yourself. If you already get 10,000 and are looking for optimal function, working up to the “Highly Active” 12,500+ steps per day may be a better goal for you.

Don’t Confuse “Exercise” for “Activity”

Of course doing an exercise video over your lunch break or going out for a run can be healthy, but it is NOT the same as “activity”. Exercise is beneficial because it stresses the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems to the point that they adapt by making your circulation to those tissues more efficient for performance. Activity, on the other hand, is more focused on circulating nutrients and wastes to your VITAL tissues like the brain, liver, digestive tract, etc. to keep you alive and healthy. In other words, “exercise” is most beneficial for improving PERFORMANCE, while “activity” is more important for your overall HEALTH. This is also why the steps that occur during exercise should not be counted towards your daily steps goal. In order to keep these numbers separate, simply remember to start a workout on the device during exercise and end the the workout directly after on the device. If you have a more basic monitor that doesn’t separate the two, simply take it off during your workouts to accomplish the same result.

Summary

Getting more active might seem like a bigger challenge than ever with all the pandemic madness, but you still have so many ways to improve your health, even from a desk! People often forget that getting up and moving around actually improves your cognitive function compared to just “hunkering down” and pushing through all the time. Making concerted efforts  to get away from the desk or couch every waking hour will accumulate more steps throughout your day, which will help melt away those stubborn pounds and significantly improve your energy levels. So when your coworkers start asking why you leave the Zoom calls so much, you can now say “My excuse is my health” and feel confident about it…just make sure you put on your pants first!

The Oracle