Adding exercise to your daily routine takes just a few simple steps. Literally a few simple steps a day can add to your overall health and fitness. The best exercise routine will always involve the large muscles of the body, and the largest of all of them are from the waist down in your glutes and your thighs.
Seven simple things you can do to add to your daily walking are:
Instead of looking for a parking space as close to the door as possible, park at the back of the lot and walk that extra two minutes inside. Do this everywhere you go, from the grocery store, to the office, to appointments. You can easily add 15 minutes of walking to your day with this simple trick. Warning: Your passengers might wonder about your mental health when you tell them you are parking 200 yards from the door at the megastore.
Walk up the stairs instead of ramps and taking elevators. Even if you work on the 25th floor of an office tower, it is usually possible to walk up the first three or flights and take the elevator the rest of the way. The added effort of climbing burns calories at an accelerated rate over walking up a ramp suitable for a wheelchair.
Go for a walk around the neighborhood. Your neighbors should know who you are, and if not, this is a great way to get acquainted while also getting some additional exercise.
Hoof it to the grocery store, and take along a cart. Yes, in today’s suburban megasprawl, this might be a bit daunting to accomplish, since the nearest market could be 30 minutes away on foot. But if your store is only a few blocks away, the walk and the extra effort of pulling a load behind you will quickly burn up some extra calories.
Deliver some of your work email by hand instead of clicking send. We are all probably guilty of firing off more email than is really necessary, because it is so easy to do so with a few keystrokes and click on the send key. By walking a few of those memos around, or just going to talk to the person you need a response from, you can easily add 10 to 15 minutes of exercise into your work day while remaining productive.
Pace around the house or office when you are thinking. Most of us sit and muddle through mental problems. Get up and move around, instead. Who knows, maybe the added blood flow to the brain will actually help you solve the problem faster. What is certain, though, is that you can add 10 or more minutes of walking to your routine activities this way.
Stand instead of sitting. If your work can be done standing instead of constantly sitting in a chair, the 300 muscles required to maintain your balance will be constantly at work, instead of atrophying while your glutes are being flattened in a chair.
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