$10 Device Tricks You Into Getting a Simple Workout
What if you could improve your health with little effort and the help of a little $10 device? There’s no catch and it’s as simple as can be. Ready, drum roll - buy a pedometer.
A pedometer is a little device that measures the number of steps you take while wearing it. It fits on your belt or in your pocket.
The benefits of walking have been documented for years. It makes sense that if you increase the distance you walk, you get healthier and getting a little healthier could save your life.
Trust Human Nature - Yours
What gets measured gets done. It’s human nature. Get attention, keep attention and people take action. The problem is making measurement simple. A pedometer is simple, takes no work, no assembly and no time. How’s that for simple?
A 3 Step Process
Fitness in small doses. That’s why your here. Here is an easy simple workout trick that’s disguised as part of your daily routine. Three simple steps will improve your health. You won’t be running a marathon, but you will be get more exercise without a lot more effort.
- Buy a pedometer. Find on locally or they’re available from Amazon for less than $10.00.
- Use the pedometer for a week and record the results.
- Increase the number of steps or distance you take every week. Pick a number you like. I’m thinking 5%. Do that for 10 weeks and you will increase your steps by 62.9%. You will improve your fitness with very little effort.
10 Ideas for Walking More
- Park your car and walk an extra 20 yards
- Park your car at the end of your driveway
- While waiting - pace
- At an event, like a kid’s game - stand and walk a bit rather than sitting
- Get off the elevator on the floor below and walk up a flight of stairs
- Walk down the stairs rather than taking the elevator
- Walk to colleagues office rather than calling on the phone
- Take the long route to the rest room or use a rest room further away
- Take a walking break instead of a sitting break
- At a store, walk around the store to get to what you want to buy
- Your turn….
Record your results every day. Set a goal to beat last week’s average by 5% or 10%. Before you know it you’ll be feeling better. Then you might want to move up to the The Ultimate Simple Workout Routine.
by Mike on April 20, 2009
Finding Time to Workout
Once upon a time, there was so much more time to do more of everything. We even had time to play, run and exercise. We didn’t think need to motivation to work out, it just seemed to happen.
Then some how, some time, when we weren’t paying attention, all that free time went away. Now we have a lot to do and it seems like less time to do it. We’ll leave how that happened for another time.
Now, we need to figure out how to squeeze or carve, or do something to find time to work out.
I went through periods when I was working in New York City and living in New Jersey. The commute was over an hour in each direction and the days sometimes wouldn’t end until after 11:00 p.m. Then it was back to the 6:35 a.m train for more. There wasn’t much time in those days, so I had to invent it. Here are the few of the things I did.
Close the Door
I would steal five minutes, several times a day, and stretch. Sometimes, I would close the door to my office and do it. Other times, while waiting for a meeting to start, I would stretch. When stretching, I would take really deep breaths through and out the nose. My favorite stretch is to fully extend the arms above the head, open the hands like a fully blossomed flower and push to the sky for 10 counts and then lower the arms back down to the side. Breath in while raising the arms and out when lowering. Go slow and smoothly.
Stealing the Lunch Hour Back
If you work in place where you can walk to lunch, do it at least twice a week. I would even hold meetings at restaurants where we had to walk for five fifteen minutes. If you don’t work where you can walk, drive and park ten minutes from the restaurant door. You can call your order ahead so your don’t need to wait.
Steal Back TV Time
How long do commercials run? About three minutes. Why not do three minute exercise segments, or, exercise and watch TV. What can you do in three minutes?
- Pushups
- Sit-ups
- Dumbbell Exercises
- Jump Rope
- Aerobic Steps
- Yoga Postures
Dance Dance Dance
Have some fun. Put on your favorite dance music and dance for 10 minutes. Don’t look now, you just got a workout.
Finding inspiration to work out is easier when you’re not really giving anything up that you value. If you need workouts to lose weight, make it a goal to find one half hour three time a week to work out for a least 30 minutes. You can use The Ultimate Simple Workout Routine to do that.
Where Can I Find 30 minutes 3 Times a Week?
Now this is really making time to exercise. This is the big leagues and requires more creativity. Many others have suggested carving it out of your sleep time. They say you’ll feel better for it. I disagree, you’ll feel really lousy with even less sleep and you’ll hate to exercise afterward. Here’s some ideas that might just work for you:
- Walk and take the kids with you
- Walk and take your Mom or Dad, or both, with you
- Walk at the mall and reward yourself with a smoothie afterwards
- Cancel one or two of your TV Shows and do it then
- Eat lunch an hour early at your desk and walk during lunch hour
- Stay late at work, but workout instead
- Go early to pick-up the kids and walk while waiting
- Stop doing something you really hate and workout instead
If your best friend asked you to help them find a way to make time to workout, what advice would you give them? Well?
Find it, steal it, make it. Do it you one minute, five minutes, 10 minutes or an hour. Make it fun and don’t give up anything you love to do in the process. That’s how you can go about finding time to workout.
