Move
You have to Move, Eat, Live and Think to MELT!
This page will be where you can learn about taking those baby steps to moving to get started. More to come, but in the meantime, check out these posts related to exercise.
10 Ways to Get Started and MOVE: (a work in progress)
If you’re smart enough to read this, you’re smart enough to know you should always check with your doctor if moving is likely to cause you any ill effects. Always a good idea to get a checkup before you start a lifestyle change.
- Find a pool and get in the water. Start with just walking back and forth or dog paddling for 5 or 10 minutes. Get someone to go with you if you don’t feel like you can get out of the pool or into the pool on your own. Floating takes all the pressure off your joints and is perfect for getting started with fitness. Go every day for 5-10 minutes. After a few days, add a minute a day until you are up to 30 minutes. Then try to do a lap. Alternate between paddling/walking and slow, easy laps until you can do laps the whole 30 minutes. Then work on speeding up so you are doing more laps in your allowed time. Goggles, a nose plug, a swim cap and fins can be found at any sporting goods department for a few dollars and make this more enjoyable if you are like me and hate getting your hair wet, water up your nose or in your eyes. (And I can’t kick at ALL, hence the fins.)
- Put on some comfortable shoes. Stand up and walk from where you are right now as far as you can walk in 10 minutes. If you can’t walk 10, go for 5 minutes. Tomorrow, do the same thing. After three days, add a minute. Keep doing that until you get up to 30 minutes. Then try to increase how fast you are walking and see if you can walk a little further each time. Go out to LiveStrong.com and use their Loops feature to figure out how far you have walked. Get a pedometer, wear it all day and see how many steps you are taking in one day. Try to add 100 steps a day until you get to 10,000 steps a day. (This is about five miles for most people according to Dr. Oz)
- Take off your shoes and put on some music that makes you feel alive and makes you want to move. Stand in one spot and move your feet to the beat. Do this for 10 minutes or 5 if you can’t make it to 10. Do this for three days until you feel like you can add a minute. Keep doing that until you get to 30 minutes. Then work on a little more intensity: get crazy and dance around the room.
- If you have one or can borrow or buy one, use a Wii Fit. Start with the easy yoga moves and try to do 5 -10 minutes. When you feel able to do so, after 3-4 days, try one of the balance games and try to do another 5 minutes. After a few days, or when you feel you can, add 5 minutes of strength training. The following week, add in 5 minutes of aerobics. You should now be doing at least 20 minutes, 5 minutes in each category. Do this for a few days until you can add a minute to one of the categories. Keep adding where you can until you are doing a total of 30 minutes. Do this until it feels as if you can do more and then keep adding minutes until you get to 60 minutes. This is fun and exactly the way I started exercising consistently last year. I loved that it tracked my improvements, my weight loss and my improvements in balance and my Wii Fit age.
