Patch Blog: Hey YOU! Just start moving!

Is exercise a dirty word in your book?  If it is I say…call it something else.  Call it going for a walk, call it cleaning the house, call it gardening.  Keeping your body in motion is the best way to lift your mood -- and your bum at the same time.  Don’t use busy as an excuse!  Isn’t it time to make YOU a priority?  What would life be without YOU?

Our bodies evolved over thousands of years to withstand what some might think of as some grueling physical exertion.   We as a species evolved in conditions that required living outdoors, raising and searching for nutrition, making clothing to keep warm and building shelters to protect ourselves from the elements.  We had to accomplish all of these survival skills with our own bodies hence, those that didn’t have the where-with-all (both mentally and physically) to survive, didn’t.  They likely didn’t reproduce and thus the expression survival of the fittest was born!  Can you imagine a body that evolved under such conditions being suddenly quite still as a lifestyle?  Unfortunately it’s not necessary to imagine this -- just look around.  Worse yet, our culture reinforces it in school and work environments.

These days there are comparatively little physical requirements placed on us to survive.  Shelter is built by people in the construction trade, we buy our food at supermarkets, walk on hard, prepared surfaces; drive our cars to the corner market, and yes – the dreaded sitting at a computer all the frigging day to generate the resources to pay for what we need for our survival.  Whew, I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

Imagine, what happens when a body that developed over centuries (at least) to function optimally  with a daily regimen of intense physical activity, sits around and watches TV, drives a car and sits all day at a computer.  At the same time, our competitive materialistic society incessantly blasts us with larger than life, hyper-real pictures of mouthwatering food.  The restaurant industry woos us with huge-er than thou portions of fattening processed foods which promise to satiate our ever-increasing “hunger.”

Enter the big bang -- loads of physical and mental maladies from obesity, heart disease, depression, anxiety, diabetes,  and skeletal and joint disorders…  It’s a time bomb, and the list goes on.  Know that regular physical movement and exercise can help!

The message here:  Moving the body must be integrated into your daily life, very much like brushing your teeth, flossing and taking a shower on a regular basis.  It’s just part of body maintenance.  Without regular exercise our bodies can only face the same fate of anything that is not maintained properly -- malfunction, deterioration and a shorter shelf life. 

Do what you can to get a proper amount of physical activity into your daily life and balance that activity with high quality nutrition to keep it operating at its best!

If you have questions or comments on my blogs don’t hesitate to post them or contact me at Infrastructure Pilates of Mt. Washington.