Mindset.

Wow! It’s Been Rough

We’ve had a tough past two years.

The pandemic. Quarantining at home. Being forced to stay out of areas or facilities with groups of people. Anyone who considered working out and getting healthy, exercising, or training to improve their health, those efforts were hampered. You could go outside for a while, but you couldn’t go outside with other people and you had to go outside with masks on. And many people were challenged by that because it’s hard to breathe when you have the face covered. Add to all that, there was a lot of debate going on back and forth about the health of walking around or exerting yourself in any form or fashion, with a face covering. And so… people didn’t exercise.

Here we are now in 2021. Many people have found themselves out of shape, and they feel like, in most cases, that they’re too far gone to reclaim any health or any, any, any smarter come of health or any semblance of health.

This blog is basically to tell you, yes you can.

I’ll state it again: yes, you can get back in shape if you set your mind to it.

You can do it.

It is possible to get healthy again. It is possible to improve your health. If you have a measure of health, you can become fit no matter where you start from. As long as you’re not on your deathbed, you can improve your health and you can improve your fitness.

So how do you do it?

Baby Steps

Think about the concept of baby steps. Small, measurable, steps toward a larger goal.

Now think about exercise. To move toward daily exercise, you must develop the mindset that you WILL complete some physical activity. Take a daily walk. Dance around the house. Or, if you like the pool, go swimming and do just a few laps. If you used to run, go for a jog.

Perhaps you used to enjoy daily exercise classes. The pandemic and quarantines interrupted many gym and studio exercise schedules, but there are still places you can go to and attend exercise class if you are fully vaccinated. Some gyms will allow you to take a class without a mask on, or with your mask if you are unvaccinated. As far as your effort is concerned, you can exert yourself lightly.

Whatever form your exercise takes, take a baby step by performing that exercise for twenty minutes a day, at least five days a week.

The Time Standard

In 2008, the federal government and Department of Health and Human Services published health guidelines later adopted by the Centers for Disease Control and other medical bodies like the American College of Sports Medicine. The American Diabetes Association. The American Heart Association. The American Cancer Association. All these entities embraced the guidelines that an average American, every American really, should take part in thirty minutes of exercise, five days a week at a minimum. We’re talking two and a half hours of exercise per week.

That’s not a lot of time.

When you consider there are 168 hours in a week. If you sleep eight hours a night, that’s 40 hours of sleep a week. If you work 40 hours a week, you add that together and that’s 80 hours a week of working and sleeping. Half of your week. If you have other activities you like to engage in, you still have 88 hours left.

With all that time, you can spare two and a half hours.

Your goal is to be consistent. Twenty minutes of exercise, daily, Monday through Friday. Try for Saturday too.

And here are your takeaways

First, develop the mindset that you will exercise at least six days out of the week for just 20 minutes. Any type of movement you want.

Second, be consistent. Daily means daily.

Third, keep track of your progress. Consistency is a marker of progress. If you can have physical activity every day as prescribed, that’s progress.

Baby steps.

You can do it.

Yes you can!