It’s almost that time of the year again. The year is coming to an end, and that usually means New Year’s Resolutions to lose a bit of weight. But why wait until January? Why not start now? But exercise isn’t fun, you may say. Or it can be a chore, you may say. What if you could exercise around the house and not even realize it?
Incidental activity is the best way to get fit without even realizing it. Light activity for roughly 30 minutes per day, even broken up into short bursts, is just as beneficial as a traditional workout. It is also much cheaper than joining a gym. It can be anything! Walk a little further, by parking further away from the grocery store or work. Flex some muscles while sitting down. Incidental activity is so easy that, if implemented, will create results that will seem to come out of nowhere.
All movement burns calories. This idea is the centerpiece of getting fit using incidental activity. More frequent walks to the kitchen or the restroom will help you burn more calories and will SLOWLY chip away at any unwanted weight and help you get fit! Forgetting why you walked into a room will burn calories because walking burns calories. Any walk of any distance counts as exercise. Even walking around in circles while chatting on the phone counts! So if you keep telling yourself that you can’t find 10 or 20 minutes in a day to go for a walk, walking back and forth at home will count towards that goal. And you more than likely already walk around enough. Woo-hoo!
How else can I burn additional calories? Fidgeting is a great way to burn extra calories while sitting down or relaxing. The most common form of fidgeting is bouncing your knee. Some may try to classify it as a symptom of anxiety, and that may or not be so, but the benefit of bouncing your knee is that it will burn a few extra calories. To harken back to a point made above, all movement burns calories. So bounce that knee. Tap those fingers. Fidget to your heart’s content, and get that extra movement in.
For any parents out there, a great and enjoyable way to incorporate more exercise into your day is to lightly wrestle or rough house with your children (playfully, of course). They’ll love it, you’ll work up a little sweat, and you will deepen your bond with your children. That’s like a 3-way win! Moving around and flexing your muscles while playing with your children is such an amazing way to burn calories. Compared to walking around or bouncing your knee, wrestling with your children will use more muscle groups and get your heart rate up. You will most likely feel winded after this. But the benefits are well worth it. And who knows? You might be able to tucker your children out and make bedtime a much smoother process. A little effort during the day to play could potentially save you some stress at night!
If you are still working from home, then looking into a standing desk could help you to burn a few more calories throughout the day. Standing is a much more active position than sitting. Standing more often throughout the day greatly increases something called “non-exercise activity thermogenesis” which is a fancy way of saying calories burned that aren’t on a jog or any other more traditional exercise. Sitting up straight rather than lying down increases energy output by 25%, and standing is even greater than sitting. The tiniest movements count, so try to make as many attempts to sit up, stand, or walk around as your day goes on. Standing is already a natural human position, so try doing it a few more time throughout the day.
Get creative with your physical activity. Let’s say, for instance, you are meeting a friend for coffee. Think about how that might go. You walk in, place your order, find a seat and chat. Well, sitting down is not very active. What if instead, you still meet that friend, but meet at a park and go for a quick walk? We can all walk and talk, no problem. Walk at a nice and easy pace. Leave the power walking for the real fitness fanatics. Keep the coffee in the equation if you’d really like to! Grab your coffee and go for a stroll, coffee in hand. Introducing more movement, no matter how trivial, into your daily routine is highly beneficial for overall health.
If you happen to have a Virtual Reality headset, then being more active should come nice and easy. VR offers many exciting and fun challenges that all require you to move around. Obviously follow all safety protocols. Make sure you don’t accidentally hurt yourself or others while swinging the controllers around. Many people have found that playing rhythm games like Beat Saber offers a fun and challenging workout. In Beat Saber, you swing motion sensing controllers around and smash colored blocks rhythmically to upbeat music. For an added challenge, strap some small weights to your wrists. This will not only make you have to work harder, but can also make you stronger at the same time!
If you happen to be a creative and musical person, then you might be delighted to find out that playing an instrument burns calories! Caloriecount.com has discovered that 1 hour of violin playing burns approximately 175 calories – the equivalent of 1/2 a Snickers Bar or 2 glasses of wine! Playing the cello for the same amount of time burns 140 calories. Drums and trombone offer some of the highest cardiovascular workouts, at around 280 calories per hour. So not only does playing music serve as a healthy creative outlet, it can also help you burn a few extra calories and lose some of that pesky weight!
Some people love it, some people hate it, but assembling furniture is another great way to get a quick little workout. Think about it, between referring to the instructions and moving pieces all around, furniture assembly is its own workout. You’ll be moving around all throughout the process of putting your new furniture together. And since movement burns calories, you’ll be sneaking a workout in! More so, if you have to go back and redo a few steps due to mistakes. Instead of dreading the process of assembling new furniture, enjoy it! It can help you increase your daily exercise activity and will be a fun and rewarding experience.
We all have chores to do around the house. Common ones include cleaning dishes, doing laundry, and vacuuming the floor. Well, if you are stuck at home and have convinced yourself that you have absolutely no time in your day to get a traditional workout in, try throwing yourself a private little dance party while doing chores. Turn up some of your favorite upbeat music, and dance around while doing dishes. Who ever said that you have to stand at the sink in total stillness? Dance, shimmy and shake while you do everyday chores around the house, and before you know it, you will have worked up a healthy sweat, and the chores will have flown right on by. What do you have to lose? The chores have to get done anyway, so try to make it more enjoyable.
We hope that these fun ideas will help you get moving more and more each day. Increasing your overall physical fitness can be anything you want it to be. If you don’t want to run a mile, then don’t! Use any of the ideas above to help you become more physically fit on your own terms. And who knows? You might end up liking exercise more than you thought. If you do, then by all means, start going to the gym for a more traditional workout. But hopefully, you can start adding more and more movement into your day and get some exercise without even realizing you’ve exercised!
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