Happy and Merry Walking.
For our family, and many other people, ‘tis the season of the trifecta of holidays: Happy Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving, and Merry Christmas. In my family we have a few birthdays thrown in there, too, along with Baptism birthdays. (We have a tradition of celebrating with Baptism brownies.) Wow - that’s a lot of celebrating...with a lot of extra calories. With the time change making dark arrive earlier and the cooler weather this season of the year becomes a time of less activity too. So how do we counter the decreased activity and increased calories, which ultimately results in the rising of the scale?
For now, I want to give you some ideas for increasing activity.
Any time a change occurs in your life, evaluating your exercise plan can be helpful. My husband and I were very faithful with both our walking plan most days of the week and our weight lifting plan 2-3 times per week. But suddenly with our move to TX, the change in location, the change in schedules, and not having our usual YMCA to lift weights, we struggle to exercise like we did before. So we are having to examine our exercise plan.
Use these PACE tricks to set yourself up for successful exercise in this happy and merry season:
-Plan your exercise ahead of time. On Saturday or Sunday, look at your upcoming week’s calendar and schedule when you’re going to exercise each day.
-Ask someone to be your accountability partner. Once a week this accountability partner asks you 2 questions. “How many days did you exercise last week?” and “How many minutes did you exercise last week?”
-Find a co-exerciser. God created us to be in community. Just as in every part of life, we need to have people to encourage us along the way. Ask people with whom you would like to spend more time, to walk or go to the gym with you.
-In your day, every hour try to get some activity. Recent research suggests that if you take 13 minutes an hour activity break, at the end of the day you’re actually just as productive as if you worked 60 minutes straight through every hour. Set your phone alarm for 60 mins; when it rings get up and move around even for several minutes. Reset your phone for another 60 minutes. If you did 5 minutes for each hour for 12 hours, you would have 35 minutes of activity daily and better health too!
In addition to PACE, set a goal for yourself. Perhaps it is a step goal of getting at least 10,000 steps 5-6 days per week if you have a step counter. Or maybe your goal might be 150-200 minutes of exercise per week. Often having a larger goal like training for a 5K or 10K walk or run can be motivating.
If you happen to be in the Austin area, please join me at “Walk with a Doc, The Path to a Healthier You”, Saturday, November 10 at 9:00AM, Baylor Scott & White Clinic, Main Entrance 3108 S. Ranch Road 620, Lakeway, TX
