Daily activity is crucial whether your goal is general health and fitness or fat loss. Over the years, and particularly over the past 20-30 years, life has become easier and easier for us.
I grew up in the UK in the 70’s. If you had a phone, it was attached to the wall and you had to walk to it to use it. If you were out, you had to find a phone box and stand whilst you used it. After school and during the holidays, we played with our friends, outside, in the street, in the local park. We walked, we ran, we skipped, we biked. Life was full of activity.
There were no X-Boxes, no streaming of TV/Movies. If we watched TV in the evening, it was as a family. If we wanted to see a movie, we had to travel to the cinema. If we wanted to go somewhere, we likely had to use public transport and we had no mobile phones to chew through our lives and render us distracted and motionless for hours every day.
In my life time, mobile phones have been invented, more and more people have cars, we have laptops and gaming systems, the internet, more people live in urban rather than suburban areas and, in truth, there seem to be more threats in our neighbourhoods. All of these things have contributed to us moving less and less.
Like many people, I now work from home, albeit in a studio in my garden where I spend my time generally standing and moving around. But I no longer have any kind of commute, no additional steps getting to and from work. When I shop, I drive to a large supermarket once or twice a week. My opportunities for daily activity have decreased dramatically and so I make an effort to ensure that I move for a minimum of 60 minutes every day, usually a walk or easy cycle. I consider this my 10,000 steps.
The idea of 10,000 steps doesn’t have to be a finite goal. You don’t have to wear a pedometer, count your steps exactly. The idea of 10,000 is just to encourage you to try to get more incidental exercise into your day, to make up for the fact that you are now moving so much less than you ever did. Our phones, computers and lifestyles have made us unconsciously sedentary. Worse still, it can be quite addictive not to move.
It takes an effort to get out and exercise, but we need to make up for all the activity we don’t do. You don’t have to go to a gym and thrash yourself. Activity is about movement so some options could be:-
- playing with children
- playing with pets
- walking to the local shops
- gardening
- housework
This activity doesn’t have to be continuous; in fact, it is better to move for a few minutes periodically throughout the day. It also doesn’t have to be vigorous, just movement, getting your body working. This is so important for your physical and mental health and should be a daily achievement.
If your goals are relatively simple, such as maintaining your current health and fitness, this level of daily activity could be enough. However, if you have a more specific goal, if you are trying to improve your fitness, if you are trying to gain strength, build muscle or lose fat, you will likely find that this is not enough stimulus to achieve your desired result. Additional, specific training will likely be necessary, ideally resistance based, and possibly some interval cardio training, it all depends on where you currently are and what your goals are. If you aren’t certain of how to do this, it might be smart to talk to a professional and get some personalised advice on how best to do these types of training alongside your daily steps/activity.
Personal Trainer Lucy B 