Do you want to be more active but don’t know how you can fit anymore into your day? I am lucky enough to be able to fit exercise into my daily routine every day- but then I no longer have children to look after each day and I work from home so life is sweet!

However, it was not all that long ago when my priorities each day were centred around the needs of others and sometimes exercise and my health priorities were forgotten. In fact, I was overweight for many years and could not find sufficient focus or energy to do anything about it. But now I am older and fitter I find ways each day to fit extra activity into my routine and many of those activities are quite doable even when you are busy.

So I thought it was time to share my easy fitness ideas with you.

Waiting For a Train

What do you do when you are waiting for a train? This might sound like a silly question, but really, what are you doing while waiting? Your answer might be, standing still, looking at your phone, reading or just plain becoming bored!!

So here is my first tip: start walking!

Yes it’s that simple. If you have to wait for 10 minutes why not just walk up and down the platform for that 10 minutes? On my station I can do almost 2 complete laps of the platform in the that time and clock up around 1500 steps.

If you walk from home to the station you can clock up even more steps. Even if you drive you can walk quite a bit – try parking your car a long way from the station. Even if you allow an extra 5-10 minutes to walk the distance you will be doing yourself a favor.

If you are worried about what people will think about you walking the platform -don’t be. They are all watching their phones and won’t even notice you!

Catching a Bus

How can you get fit by catching a bus? Work out how long it takes you to walk to the next bus stop away from your house or even two stops away and walk there everyday to get more steps in. You may even save money this way!

At Work

There are lots of ways to get your steps up at work. If you have a standing desk you can walk on the spot while working. I walk up and down all the time during phone or Skype conversations. If you work in a open plan office you can start walking round the office to talk to people instead of calling them. You can take the stairs both up and down. And finally you can take a walk outside at lunchtime instead of sitting in the lunchroom.

These are simple ways to get moving. They may seem obvious but then when you see how many people are standing or sitting on that train station you will realise that sometimes the simple things are not obvious at all!!

Enjoy your walking!!

 

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Until next time,

 

 

 

 

 

Gillian (and Andrew)