9 Simple Active Strategies for Adding MEANINGS to Your Life

Over the past two years, I have been conducting increasingly more classes to get participants to be more active and to exercise more regularly. From my participants, I learnt that many people are not physically active enough as they felt that there are many barriers to leading a more active lifestyle although they knew the benefits of physical activity and exercising. These include finding time to exercise, lack of motivation, lack of companions, weather conditions, convenience of exercise venue, other more interesting activities competing against exercising. If you can identify with any of these, I assure you that you are not alone. Many people out there are also struggling to be more active, just like you, me included. I have a good news for you. I will be sharing with you the exact strategies that had helped me overcome my barriers and got me out of my sedentary lifestyle to a moderately active moi (me) currently!

#1) The first and most important strategy that has worked for me each time I became lazy and yearned to sit on my couch and watch Netflix – questioning the importance of exercising. This question would always pop up in my mind. ON A SCALE OF ONE TO TEN, WITH ONE BEING NOT IMPORTANT AND TEN BEING VERY IMPORTANT, HOW IMPORTANT IS PREVENTING VASCULAR DISEASES, DIABETES AND DEMENTIA? My response would always be 10 out of 10. Immediately, I would change into my sports gear and either go running or head to the gym. You may be asking why a 10 out of 10 importance. My late-father had suffered from hypertension, high blood cholesterol and diabetes. Genetically, I do have quite a high chance of getting them too. In addition, both my late-maternal grand-parents suffered from dementia and my mother is suffering from mild cognitive impairment. Yes, how unfortunate to have such genes. Well, as a trained nurse, I don’t believe much in good fortune when it comes to health, wellness and death. But rather, I believe in doing what has been proven to be effective. And incorporating more physical activity into one’s life has been proven to be effective in preventing as well as managing hypertension, high blood cholesterol, diabetes and dementia. So why not incorporate more physical activity into my life?

#2) But how do you do that, Susan? For a start, I SWITCHED MY MODE OF TRANSPORTATION FROM CARS TO BUSES, TRAINS AND WALKING. This switch has provided me with many opportunities to clock more steps daily as I will need to walk from the bus-stop to the train station, or within the train station or from the bus-stop / train station to home. Not driving and not taking taxis or Grab has given me more opportunity to walk and to be more active. At times, I even choose to walk from one place to another if the distance is less than two kilometers apart. Yes, it’s all about making choices, the more active choices.

#3) In addition, I have set SMART goals for my physical activity.

Specific

Measurable

Actionable

Realistic

Timeframe

My SMART goal #1 is clear and has numbers that I can easily track. I aim to run about ten to fifteen kilometers per week and go to the gym at least once, and if time permits, twice. In order to achieve that, I had specified which day of the week I will be running versus going to the gym. Wednesday is my must-run day. And I will run again during the weekend, if time permits, I will run on both Saturday and Sunday. In this way, I would achieve my goal of running fifteen kilometers for that week as I would run five kilometers for each run. There are a few numbers in this goal. Five kilometers per run, and ten to fifteen kilometers per week.

My SMART goal #2 is build muscles, hence, to go to the gym at least once a week on either Monday or Tuesday. And if I am able to go to the gym on Thursday or during the weekend, I would have achieved my goal of going to the gym twice for that week.

So, what are you waiting for? Set yourself goals for your physical activity and indicate the definitive days of the week, so that you know that ‘today’ is the day that I commit to exercise, hence, you will just have to do the physical activity before doing any other activities like hanging out with friends or watching television.

#4) I’m going to help you out here by providing you with the following strength-training exercises that are so simple that you can do them while watching television. Strength-training is as important as your cardio-endurance exercises like running, cycling, and dancing, etc. Strength training has been proven to be effective in lowering blood pressure, LDL and blood sugar level. START DOING YOUR STRENGTH TRAINING today! Always consult your family doctor first to make sure that you are physically fit to exercise. Do not be overly-ambitious with your exercise plan. Exercise mindfulness when you are exercising. Observe your body response to the exercises by starting at a pace that is comfortable for your body. As your body becomes stronger, you will need to progress to do more within the same timing or do the same set of exercises in shorter timing.

Click here to view and download my simple Strength Training exercises

#5) CHOOSE at least one or two sports that you (will) enjoy doing, such as dancing if you enjoy listening to music or outdoor walks or runs if you enjoy being in the outdoor rather than running or walking on treadmill. It is also necessary to choose at least one activity that you are able to do without the need of a companion. For me, running is one such activity. Although there are people who run with others, it is tough to keep up with the pace of others and it may be tough to run and talk at the same time. In this case, why not just run alone? Anyway, if you run in the parks, there are other joggers there. You will not be alone. Of course, to make exercising more fun, you may choose another activity that you can do with your friends like a dance class or aerobics class, anyway, we humans are social creatures.

#6)Human bodies are made to move. Not moving it sufficiently may cause one to experience the aches and pains from tight muscles and ligaments. Some people are experiencing some aches and pains which make exercising an unthinkable activity.  The following are some range of motion exercises that will help to release the tightness in the muscles and ligaments and relieve the aches and pains. Many of my course participants had shared that they felt better after engaging in these range of motion activities. Do the following exercises in sets of two to three with eight to eighteen repetitions for each set.

Click here to view and download my Range of Motion exercises

#7) Do not suffer the post-exercise muscles soreness unnecessarily. Doing sufficient stretching to warm up your muscles and body parts before exercising and doing stretching exercises after exercising will not only prevent sports injury, but also help you avoid those unpleasant sore muscles. Click here to view my Stretching exercises that will help you prevent all those muscles soreness.

#8) One can sustain awful sports injury from inappropriate SPORTS WEAR. For example, I nearly broke my foot when I wore my running shoes to my first Zumba class. When everyone started to move and twist their feet, and I tried to imitate that movement. But, hey, my foot was stuck to the exact same spot where it was, it would not move in a twisting manner. Luckily, I was gentle with that twisting of foot, otherwise, I might have cracked a bone or two on my foot. That kind of surprised me. Yes, I was that sedentary person who thought that one can start to do all kinds of exercises with just one pair of sports shoes! But sadly, it was not the correct conclusion. Hence, I started researching on why my foot would not move like others in the class, and learnt that running shoes are made with maximum traction to the ground so as to reduce one’s risk of falling, whereas dancing shoes are made in such a way that allows all the twisting movements and side movements when one dances. Wow… what a discovery! Now, I have at least four pairs of sports shoes: one for running, one for dancing Zumba, one for playing tennis and the last pair for walking. Well, shoes are not the only sports wear that you need to consider. You need to consider the tee shirt and shorts or tights, and good-supporting bras for ladies whether you consider yourself well-endowed or not. It can be painful to run without a good-supporting bra.

#9) Sustain your motivation for physical activity and exercising by tracking your personal progress. Most people whom I have met were tracking the wrong measure / indicator – their weight.

What are you talking about, Susan? What do you mean that it’s wrong? Of course, they are right to track their weight, Susan.  People exercise to lose weight, you know!

Well, well… if you are exercising correctly, you should be gaining muscles and muscles weigh more than fats, hence, you should be gaining weight instead of losing weight. Because most people are focusing on the numbers on the weighing scale, they soon become disappointed when they keep seeing their weight climbing upwards when they have been exercising regularly. This causes many to eventually stop their exercise regime thinking that they were wasting their time and efforts as exercising had not produced their desired outcome – to lose weight. In fact, they were not wasting their time. If they are exercising, they should be gaining muscles and losing fats, hence, naturally they will weigh more. This is a good indicator!

Another indicator is to observe your body shape and your muscles mass. You should become more toned and should be able to see more muscle mass on the body parts that you have been working on, like your biceps if you are following my strength training exercises.

The most important indicator – your WAIST CIRCUMFERENCE. It IS your waist circumference, not your waist. To measure your waist circumference, you need to trace the tip / top of your hip bone and place your measuring tape at that spot. According to some of my course participants, it is somewhere near your navel button and not your waist. With regular exercising, we are working towards losing that belly fat. Belly fat has been found to be a more accurate indicator of a person’s increased risk to the vascular diseases instead of the Body Mass Index (BMI) that some of you may be familiar with. You should be aiming at for the readings as shown in the following table.

Source: SingHealth (2014)

Keeping track of how much you are doing in within a certain time frame is another measure of your progress. Therefore, monitor if you are making progress by being able to do more exercises within the same timing or do the same set of exercises in a shorter time frame.

All the best, my readers! Be Active and add MEANINGS to your life daily!

Reference:

SingHealth. (2014). https://www.singhealth.com.sg/PatientCare/ConditionsAndTreatments/Pages/Diabetes-Management.aspx accessed on 3 Sep 2018