Hello Everybody,
As we know walking is one of the best forms of healthy exercise and is particularly suited to older people. But those living in Europe will have experienced the worst winter for twenty years. It is hard to become motivated to take a walk when the pavements are icy and the day temperature below freezing. Better to sit at home with a glass of wine and a big fire, looking out at snowflakes settling on you neighbour’s cat. Delightful as that may be there is a downside and that is the 100 calories in your glass of wine. It will have to go somewhere and if you do not have your daily walk the scales will tell you exactly where it has gone. This does not matter too much if you are snowed-in for a short time but if it develops into a week or so you need to consider doing indoor exercises. These can be boring, but if you do them first thing in the morning your alternative healthy exercise is out of the way. Then you can get back to enjoying your fire and maybe even half a glass of wine.
Begin by holding out your arms sideways and circling them ten times one way and ten times the other.
Hold your arms at your sides slide your hand down your leg each side in turn bending at the waist. Do this ten times.
Sit with your leg straight out and rotate the ankle five times. Do this with each leg.
Sit down and stand up again ten times.
Stand up and do knee bends five times.
To help balance stand on one leg and count up to twenty, then stand on the other leg and do the same. Make sure you have something to hold on to in case you wobble, as you probably will do the first few times.
At the end of this you should feel slightly out of breath. If you feel really out of breath or have any other symptoms stop immediately and check with you doctor before you continue.
This will not burn off as many calories as a mile’s brisk walking. But it will burn off a few and you will not have gained as much weight while snowbound as you otherwise would have done. If you enjoy the exercises - and some people do - keep them up along with your fitness walking program. They will help with your upper body strength, something which walking alone does not greatly improve.
Try to avoid eating out of boredom. It is easy to sit in front of the television with a packet of biscuits and eat the lot. However, it is not a good idea to reduce the size of your regular meals. Even with your log fire and central heating it can still be cooler than usual indoors, particularly if you have an older house. So do not try to slim, just avoid putting on too much weight during the cold spell. Soon it will be over and the first snowdrops will make us all forget it ever happened. Then walking for fitness can start all over again.
See you soon,
Peter Stockwell
16 January 2010
Photo. Abizeleth (Flickr)
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