Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to exercise with a purpose. Lots of
Speaker 1: people want to exercise more in the new year, but
Speaker 1: when exercise makes sense in your life, you'll be far
Speaker 1: more likely to stick with it. Like many people, I've
Speaker 1: laughed at the widely circulated photo of escalators leading into
Speaker 1: a gym. Now, I know this is partly about accessibility,
Speaker 1: which I am a really big fan of, but I
Speaker 1: also imagine that there are people who take those escalators
Speaker 1: just to log forty minutes on the stair climbing machines.
Speaker 1: Exercise can seem so removed from normal life, and so
Speaker 1: when we get busy, it's an easy thing to cut.
Speaker 1: Contrast the us with our ancestors who didn't have the
Speaker 1: option to cut exercise out of their lives. They had
Speaker 1: to walk places and cut wood and plant crops and
Speaker 1: ring clothes without the benefit of modern labor saving machinery.
Speaker 1: People these days whose jobs involve physical labor likewise don't
Speaker 1: need to make time to hit the gym to stay fit. Now,
Speaker 1: most of us aren't going to turn our jobs into
Speaker 1: the physical equivalent of being lumberjacks. But we might find
Speaker 1: ways to exercise more purposefully and thus increase the chances
Speaker 1: that we stick with it. Not because we have found
Speaker 1: new fonts of willpower, but because it makes sense. For instance,
Speaker 1: you know who walks briskly for thirty minutes each day,
Speaker 1: People who live fifteen minutes from the station where they
Speaker 1: get on the train to work. You leave the house
Speaker 1: just a minute later than you planned, and suddenly you're hustling.
Speaker 1: This is also why people with dogs walk more per
Speaker 1: day than other people. The dog needs to be walked,
Speaker 1: and so you do too. Now you may not want
Speaker 1: to adopt a dog, and you may not have a
Speaker 1: walk friendly commute, but you can still build in possibilities.
Speaker 1: For instance, you might be able to literally run an
Speaker 1: errand or at least walk an errand. For instance, if
Speaker 1: I need a break and I need to mail a package,
Speaker 1: I'll walk to the post office. I'll also walk to
Speaker 1: return books to our local library. My husband and I
Speaker 1: bought a new house in our neighborhood recently, and it's
Speaker 1: being renovated, so we are not living there yet. I
Speaker 1: will run the two miles there to check on the
Speaker 1: property and then run two miles home. This feels a
Speaker 1: lot more purposeful than just running four miles on the treadmill.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing as much strength training as I'd like
Speaker 1: to lately, but I decided to cut myself some slack
Speaker 1: when I realized I'm doing a purposeful version of that
Speaker 1: carrying around a twenty four pound toddler. If you have
Speaker 1: young children, you might also figure you're out games you
Speaker 1: can play that involve moving them and voila big biceps.
Speaker 1: A lot of outdoor yard projects can be recast as
Speaker 1: strength training. Gardening, shoveling, leaf breaking, stacking wood. Spending fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes a day on those things can be a good
Speaker 1: substitute for the gym workout and maybe even save you
Speaker 1: some money if you otherwise would be outsourcing them. And
Speaker 1: since they need to be done, they make more sense.
Speaker 1: My family has been trying to do family walks on weekends,
Speaker 1: especially as the kids sports have taken a pause due
Speaker 1: to COVID concerns. But we've noticed that walking briskly around
Speaker 1: a zoo is much the same as walking on a trail,
Speaker 1: only the kids are less aware of the exercise because
Speaker 1: they're seeing tigers in the process. Something to keep in
Speaker 1: mind for family harmony. In any case, if you'd like
Speaker 1: to exercise more in the new year, see if there
Speaker 1: are places in your life where you might be able
Speaker 1: to exercise with a purpose. Instead of driving to a
Speaker 1: coffee shop, you find one closer to home where you
Speaker 1: can walk or bike. Instead of running in a loop,
Speaker 1: you run to a destination for something you need to do.
Speaker 1: And if you have a situation where your life requires
Speaker 1: extra exercise, well you might do all kinds of great
Speaker 1: things without even trying. I once met a woman who
Speaker 1: had started working with a new team at her very
Speaker 1: large company. Suddenly, most of her meetings were a ten
Speaker 1: minute brisk walk across campus from her desk. She began
Speaker 1: logging thousands of steps during her work days, and intriguingly,
Speaker 1: some chronic pain she'd been suffering from disappeared. She had
Speaker 1: known that exercising more regularly would help, but it never
Speaker 1: fit into her life until it had to. Maybe you
Speaker 1: can do the same thing in the meantime. This is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything. Else,
Speaker 1: just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast pod. That's b E the number four, then
Speaker 1: Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an
Speaker 1: email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot
Speaker 1: com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For
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