Get Moving!! STOP Sitting.

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Transform your life, your fitness, your energy level, and your mood by MOVING MORE, and sitting less. The result? You’ll lose weight, sleep better, and stave off heart disease, diabetes, and many other medical problems. You’ll feel better and look better this year!!

We recommend 30 minutes of actual exercise five days a week, even if you break it up into three 10-minute spans. What does that mean? Schedule your sessions on your calendar, just like you do with meetings, kid practices, and appointments. You can choose the form of exercising -- walking, running, yoga, the elliptical, dancing – any physical movement that raises your heart rate, and we have found interval training to be most effective. That’s when you combine heart-pumping motion with periods of lower key action, like walking four minutes and then running for two. Also important is to incorporate full-body strength training into your routine, like pushups or weight lifting.

Secondly and just as important, spend LESS time sitting and, in fact, aim to get up every hour and move for five minutes. Do 25 jumping jacks, 25 jump ropes, 25 squats, a five-minute walk with 12 squats at the end…be creative and mix up your movement throughout the day, week, month and year! This is also a great way to improve mental health, in addition to physical wellbeing.

Additionally, track your success!! Yes, that means writing down/checking off when you exercise. Doing this breeds success because it’s a way of patting yourself on the back—and we all like to be validated when we do something well.

And finally, why exercise 30 minutes a day?

  • Strengthen your heart and lower your blood pressure

  • Increase your good HDL cholesterol and decrease the bad LDL, decreasing your risk of a heart attack

  • Boost your metabolism, so you burn more calories and help prevent calories from being stored as fat

  • Bolster bone mass, increasing bone density and strengthening muscles

  • Sleep more soundly

  • Improve your mood, insulating yourself from depression and naturally providing your body pain relief

Consistent, daily exercise is such a gift to yourself, and ultimately to those you love—it creates good health, more energy, and a happier mood. Tonight, bundle up and take a brisk walk, and marvel at the difference in how you feel.

Marg Starkexercise, health, healthy choices, physical fitness, heart health, lose weight