It can be tempting to get comfy and binge watch Tiger King, or whatever your streaming show of choice is. But don’t let “Netflix and chill” ruin your chance of staying fit and healthy at home during this isolation period. There are a lot of little things you can do each day to sneak a little exercise in, and help you accumulate your minutes for the day.
Try a few of these:
Park further away – Even if you’re only leaving the house once or twice a week to get essential supplies, parking a little bit further from the shop is a win-win. First you get some extra steps in and accumulate a little extra exercise, and second, you’re further away from those other shoppers – very responsible distancing well done!
Take the stairs – If have stairs at your home, go up and down them more rather thran less, you’ll burn more than 10 times as many calories as you would standing still! Instead of making a pile of stuff to bring up next time you go, every time you need to bring something upstairs, do it. Need to bring a t-shirt up to the bedroom – go! Take soap to the bathroom – go! Another t-shirt to bring up – go again. The more trips you make the more exercise you get. If you’re feeling really motivated , RUN up the stairs.
Crunch while you watch TV – If you’re going to go ahead and binge watch anyway, why not strengthen your abdominal muscles and burn a few calories at the same time. Any exercise you can do while looking straight ahead can be done while watching TV. Crunches, bicycles, squats, lunges, pushups, bird-dogs… you’re only limited by your imagination and motivation.
Practice good posture while you sit – If you’re working from home you are likely soending a lot of hours in front of a computer. But you can still engage your core muscles and improve your posture by tilting your pelvis backwards and crunching your abdominals, pull your belly button in and engage your pelvic floor; pull your shoulders back, tuck your chin in and sit up tall.
Fidget – As silly as it might sound, by refusing to sit still you can burn up to 100 extra calories a day. Jiggle your knees, tap your toes, swivel your chair, roll your shoulders – any activity works!
Swap your Chair for a Ball – Swapping out your office chair for a Swiss ball, even just for 20 minutes at a time, will help you engage more muscles and keep moving, which will burn extra calories.
Clean teeth Squats – You have to clean your teeth twice a day for 2 minutes. And that is a 2 minutes window of opportunity to squeeze in as many body weight squats as you can!
Squeeze your booty – The amount of time we spend sitting down in chairs is incredible. Use some of that time to squeeze your glute muscles, both together and then one at a time.
Stand up – Pretty simple really, you burn more calories standing than sitting, so when you’re talking on your phone or scrolling through Facebook = stand up, or even better, walk or move around.
Crank up the music – Doing your daily chores around the house, or just going for a walk – you’ll work harder for longer and it will seem easier if you have some great, motivational music playing.
Get outside – It’s important for mental health and wellbeing as well as for your vitamin-D to get your skin out in the sun and the fresh air for 10-15 minutes a day. If you have kids, take them out for a bike or scooter ride, a scavenger hunt or a game of Frisbee. Get walking, running, biking, whatever gets you outdoors!
Stretch – simply taking a few minutes to do some gentle active stretching first thing in the morning will help get your ready for the day, and a few stretches at night will help you relax and get ready for bed.
