When we were growing up, we didn’t need to join a gym or sign up for Zumba classes. Life was a workout. We were moving all day long.
We walked to school; home for lunch; back to school and back home again. In every kind of weather – sun, rain, snow and sleet.
Our parents didn’t drive us everywhere (or anywhere!) – we walked or rode our bikes.
We didn’t call or text our friends to see if they were home and wanted to hang out. We had to walk all the way over to their house and if they weren’t home; or were busy; we either walked to another friends house or back home.
We played outside. One of the fondest memories I have from my childhood is playing hide and seek in the townhouse complex we lived in. Home free was the big lamp post in the middle and we would play all evening and even into the darkness. We played outside until our parents – one by one – started calling us inside.
We played outside because there wasn’t anything on the nine TV channels we got that was compelling enough to keep us inside.
Unless it was “Battle of the Network Stars” night. I LOVED that show!
Speaking of TV, do you remember getting up to change the channel? Do you remember the argument about who was going to do it!
It’s your turn! No, it’s your turn, I did it last time!
Even the smallest activities that had us moving are now gone.
Do you remember rolling down the car window? OMG! I would love to put a teenager in a car without power windows and watch them try to figure out how to get the window down.
How about washing and drying the dishes by hand?
And running to answer the phone before the person hung up because, if you missed it, you had no idea who called. There were no machines to take a message.
Even cleaning was much more hard work then than it is now. No Crossfit class could match the workout my mother got every Saturday morning with her wringer washing machine!
That thing was the complete work out: cardio while chasing the machine across the room; strength training when hauling it back to the corner by the wash tub; and a full arm workout feeding the clothes through the wringer (pushing and pulling so that it didn’t get all balled up and pop the wringer).
And it always fell to us kids to bend and stretch hanging the clothes on the line to dry. Take the laundry away and – boom – we were doing squats!
Now, I’m not saying that I begrudge the inventions and advances that are supposed to make our lives easier. They do make life easier but there is a price to pay.
They have taken away the natural movement that we are supposed to be doing with our bodies as we go through our day. Even natural movement like walking is being done less and less because of the way our modern cities are being built.
Take my town for example. My town has all of the historical buildings marked with plaques so you can see how it was mapped out at the very beginning. There was the main street that ran (still runs) North/South with some shops, an apothecary, a market, bank, post office and a small restaurant. At the South end of Main Street is the school and the library.
The residential flows to the East and West out from the Main street.
The businesses that were not required daily were on side streets just off the Main street. Things like the Doctor’s office, the Veterinarian and the Shoemaker.
This model made sense. Everyone could walk to the Main street and pick up everything they needed for the next day or two. They had to walk home so they would only buy what they could carry. This meant three or four trips to Main street per week.
Imagine how much walking was done (how much “working out”) in a week just to aquire the items that you needed to live day to day. And the bicep work carrying everything home!
The school was within walking distance for all of the kids – some close and some a bit further away but still walkable. If your parents had a car, they certainly weren’t wasting gas to cart your precious ass to school. Not in sun, rain, snow or sleet.
My town has now grown so much that the residential has sprawled East and West almost as far as the next town on both sides. The Main street is still there but the bank and the post office are gone. They’ve moved to the large plaza’s where the grocery stores and Shopper’s Drug Marts are.
There are a few specialty shops (the Persian rug store, the local psychic, the tatoo shop), but everything you really want is at the big box area.
There are two to choose from. The one at the south end of town or the one at the East end of town. Both have a Costco, a Walmart, a Home Depot, a Staples, a Best Buy, restaurant chains like Montana’s and Boston Pizza and a Michaels.
Michaels just baffles me – do that many people really do that many crafts? So many that they need an entire large retail store dedicated to it?
Now we have to drive every time we need something.
Okay, we don’t HAVE to drive. I’m not against walking – even long distances – but who has the time! I don’t want to spend the entire afternoon getting printer paper from the Staples store.
And, although it would be great exercise, I am not willing to walk all the way back home carrying a box of 5000 sheets of paper.
If you’re someone who is naturally active – perhaps you’re a gym rat or play a sport recreationally – then you don’t necessarily have anything to worry about.
But there are many of us who aren’t naturally active. We need to rely on our daily activity to give us the required movement and exercise we need but the activity just isn’t there anymore.
So what to do?
Maybe we need to do things the old way every now and then.
- If you only need a couple items, choose to walk to the store instead of driving. (I did that the other day. I walked all the way to the Sobeys for a loaf of bread. Why? Because I needed the exercise and because all I needed was a loaf of bread. If I drove, I probably would have added a bunch of things I didn’t need. So it was good for my health and my finances.)
- If your kids (or grandkids) are young – walk to school with them instead of driving.
- Park further from the door of the store you’re going to (I actually do this, my daughter hates it!)
- Walk to the mailbox every night instead of stopping on the way home in your car (this is for those of us that have those superboxes)
- Take the stairs in the Mall instead of the escalator (this one separates the men from the boys let me tell you)
- Don’t use the drive-thru! Get out of your car and walk inside.
- Wash and dry the dishes by hand every now and then or,
- for a better work out – wash your car . . . or your dog! Or even go to a “wash it yourself” place. For your car, not your dog. We have one of those and I have used it. Better than sitting in your car being pulled through the wash – and cheaper too!
The idea is to work on adding activity to our day without knowing it. And don’t overthink it. If the above suggestions don’t appeal to you, then just start walking!
A friend of mine has lost a significant amount of weight by using a Fitbit to count his steps every day. He keeps to a minimum of 10,000 steps per day and the results are remarkable. Just from walking!
I’m not ready to spend $200 on a FitBit right now but maybe I can step it up a bit. (pun intended)
Walking will get the muscles working and the blood flowing which:
- Improves memory
- Lowers blood pressure
- Builds bone density
- Helps to reduce bad cholesterol
And probably a whole lot more.
The point is to just “move”! Move so that our bodies don’t start to atrophy.
At•ro•phy (verb) – gradually decline in effectiveness or vigor due to underuse or neglect.
That’s when you really start to feel old.
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