Challenge
Children tend to run everywhere, they jump, they run backwards and forwards, they rush around, life is exciting, they feel good, they laugh, they shout and are generally on their default setting of happy. When we are at school we have physical education lessons at least weekly, and you and I ran around in the playground before school, at break, at lunch time and probably ran out of school at the end of the day as well.
As we get older, we walk instead of running and then very often we take the bus/train or drive instead of walking and before we know it, we are living a sedentary life and finding the thought of running is long gone from our minds.
We also find that we aren’t as fit as we were when we were younger, it’s a lot easier to put on weight and our bodies are beginning to show signs of the sedentary life we are leading.
Change
As with everything, it’s the starting that is the hardest part! Making that decision to walk today instead of taking the bus/train or driving. The starting comes directly from your motivation to make a change. Have a look in the mirror and see how you might like to prefer to be, run upstairs and see how quickly you get out of breath. Whatever it takes to motivate you to start.
Having taken the decision, now is a good time to begin!!
Taking exercise certainly doesn’t mean you need to start training for an Ironman triathlon!! It doesn’t have to be vigorous or exhausting; taking a stroll around your neighbourhood works just as well. Walking for 10 minutes today and 15 tomorrow, working up to walking for 30 mins 3 times a week is excellent. It means going to the pool and having a swim. It means meeting up with some friends and going to the park, or the countryside and walking in nature, appreciating the wonder of the changing seasons. It means doing some stretches when you get up each day, or when you go to bed each night.
There are some excellent apps available – the 30 Day Challenges for instance that are fun to do and you do them at a beginner level. It means borrowing a bicycle (or recycling the one you have hidden around somewhere) and going for a gentle ride, maybe with friends. It means getting a DVD and joining in with the exercises in your home, noticing how each time it gets a little easier to do.
Exercise is a strong ‘feel good’ activity as chemical reactions take place in your body and release endorphins which make you feel happy. That alone is a good reason to take exercise. Once you begin to feel better from exercise you naturally want to do other good things that make you feel happy too.
Achievement
What a wonderful thought that is, that there are some amazing days in the future that you and I have no idea about yet. We will only know when they are happening, that they are special days, days that are like golden beads on the necklace of life.
Good days happen by design, and you are designing your life, with exercise as a part of your life, you are setting the future to have good days, days when you feel good, when you smile, when you are having fun, when you are running and jumping like a child again!!
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