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Step Up to Fitness and Health
With work,
our families, and all of the things we do in a day, exercise most often
does not make it onto our daily to do lists. It should because exercise
helps us to maintain healthy, strong minds and bodies that are more
resistant to physical and emotional illnesses and diseases. Many of us
are quick to offer excuses like we do not have enough time or we are too
tired from all that we do, to explain why we do not regularly exercise.
But the truth of the matter is that many of us have become complacent
about taking responsibility for our own physical and emotional fitness
and health. We blame our jobs, duty to our family, financial
obligations, and many other circumstances in our lives for why we do not take care of
ourselves like we know we should.
It is time
to step up to the responsibility of taking care of your fitness and
health before it is too late Before a serious illness or disease that
may have been avoided because of the health protection of exercise
strikes and the course of your life is drastically changed. Taking full
responsibility for your own fitness and health means that not getting in
at least some form of exercise at least three days a week is
unacceptable.
There are
multitudes of ways in which to incorporate exercise into your daily
routine. Walk or ride your bike to work. If walking or cycling to work
is not possible, park your vehicle several blocks from the office and
walk the rest of the way. Bypass elevators and use the stairs as often
as possible. Take a brisk walk or jog around the park at lunchtime. Get
up from your desk during your work day and do some calisthenics to get
your blood flowing properly through your body. Purchase a dura disc for
your office chair which will allow you to exercise as you do your work,
or keep some
exercise stretch bands in the bottom drawer of your desk for a fast ten
minute stretch that will help power you through the rest of
your day. Keep a rolled up yoga mat in the corner of your office and
pull it out for flexibility strengthening and stress decompressing
exercises when you have twenty minutes or even less down time while at
work. Finally consider joining your company sponsored health and wellness programs and
utilize the company gym often, if there is one.
If you work
from home in a business or in caring for your children, you can find
plenty of opportunities to get in exercise. Take regular breaks from your
work and perform ten minute exercise sessions like aerobics, jump rope,
jogging or running around the block, working with dumbbells and weight
lifting, schedule one or two morning or afternoon gym workouts a week,
pop an exercise DVD in and get in a workout while the kids nap or you
are waiting for a fax to arrive. Speaking of kids, if your work is
taking care of them, get them involved in exercising for their fitness
and health too. Make it fun. Have races across the yard, toss a ball
around, have water balloon fights, build an obstacle course in the
backyard and get everybody moving and competing, go for a swim, hike, or
bike ride through the neighborhood. Be just as creative in finding
exercises to do and the time to do them every day, as you were in coming
up with creative excuses for not exercising before.
Step up to
the responsibility you owe to yourself to be as fit and healthy as
possible. Do it before it is too late and you are only left with wishing
you had taken better care of yourself. Getting in at least some exercise
every day is an important part of taking good care of yourself, and you
deserve nothing less than that. I promise that with daily exercise your
fitness, health, and the experience of living will all be the better for
it.
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