Last Wednesday was National Fitness Day. This is a day where to be honest, people who exercise anyway post about the exercise they’ve done and gyms perhaps use it for promotion purposes. Does it actually make people exercise who wouldn’t normally though?
One thing Lockdown highlighted however is, as vital as exercise is for physical and mental health, your non exercise activity is also important for achieving results.
During lockdown I did some form of exercise most days. What also happened however is my step count reduced dramatically. From walking everywhere everyday I went to not really walking anywhere (lets face it we couldn’t actually go anywhere). The reduction in steps had a dramatic effect on my body even though I was still training in some form or another- fact is I just wasn’t burning as many calories a day because overall, away from exercise, I was moving less.
When we want to lose weight we generally think the most important thing to do is to do more exercise. Adding training of some form into your life is of course incredibly beneficial, but equally it can feel daunting and it can also take a while to create this type of habit. The quickest and easiest thing anyone looking to reduce body weight (lose weight) aside creating a calorie deficit is to just move more.
Going out for a walk at lunch time, making part of your commute a walk, walking whilst on the phone – all those little bits of extra movement make a far greater impact on your results than you think they will. When you think about it- an hour of planned exercise a day is 1/24 of your day, so what you do in the other 96% of your day can make all the difference.
So if you missed National Fitness Day that doesn’t really matter, same if you missed the gym today- just move a bit more each day as a starting point.
Heather Sherwood Fitness 