Five Fitness Hacks For An Active Lifestyle
Healthy living and a fit lifestyle entail staying active daily. Of course, in the humdrum of our daily routine and challenges, exercise takes a back seat, but to ensure good physical and mental health, we must remember to stay active as much as possible.
Staying active doesn’t mean one has to enrol in a gym and dedicatedly allot an hour every day to run outdoors but simply making sure that you do not become sedentary. Instead, include easy to do, simple, short spurts of activities you enjoy to stay fit in your daily life. The advantages of being active regularly are far too many.
Your risk of contracting life-threatening conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and elevated cholesterol is greatly minimised even as you feel energised with a better immune system, stronger bones and muscles, and improved cognition. Being active also helps you manage your weight, sleep better, feel relaxed, and have a positive outlook towards life.
Here are a few simple fitness hacks for an active lifestyle are:
TAKE THE STAIRS
One of the easiest ways to incorporate physical activity in your life is to take the stairs whenever there is an opportunity. Whether it is your apartment building, office, or store, ditch the temptation of taking the elevator and opt for the stairs instead. It’s an excellent cardio workout that doesn’t require either much time or additional equipment. In addition, taking stairs is a great option to ensure cardio respiratory fitness, lose calories, muscular/bone strength, and stamina.
“Stair climbing can also improve energy levels and lower the risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and osteoporosis.”
MOVE OFTEN, STAY ACTIVE
Time and again, studies have spoken about the dangers of being a couch potato. Spending hours sitting in your home, office, car, and elsewhere can potentially bring up your risk of contracting various types of diseases like cancer, high blood sugar, cardiovascular ailments, osteoporosis as well as anxiety, and depression. Therefore, it’s advisable to stay active and keep moving to lower your risk of such health issues.
Simply standing instead of sitting down can keep your metabolism up. While standing, the muscles in our butt, abdomen, and legs are actively used, thereby burning calories. On the other hand, walking is one of the simplest and easiest options to include physical activity in your daily life.
According to OneFitPlus, easy ways to stay active include small lifestyle choice like walking to the local market instead of driving down, adopting standing desks in offices, taking stairs wherever possible, and as a rule, walking a certain number of steps after every meal.
WALK WHENEVER POSSIBLE INSTEAD OF TAKING ANY TRANSPORT
Walking offers great health benefits and keeps you in good shape. It is a low-impact aerobic exercise that is simple, enjoyable, costs nothing, and can easily fit into your lifestyle. Walking not just keeps your heart, lungs, and body muscles strong and improves your mood but helps you shed extra kilos and inches as well.
In addition, people who incorporate walking in their daily lives have a lower BMI (body mass index) and lower waist measurements than those who are less active. If walking for a set amount of time every day is not possible, go for short walks whenever you get the chance throughout the day.
DRINK LOTS OF WATER
Even mild dehydration can leave us exhausted and impair our physical and mental performance. We should have at least 8 glasses or two litres of water every day to keep ourselves sufficiently hydrated. More than a thirst quencher, water keeps each part of our bodily system functioning properly. Water flushes out waste, transports nutrients in the body, regulates body temperature, assists in the functioning of our brain and muscles, improves digestion, and helps lose weight.
It also maintains the equilibrium of electrolytes essential for the nervous system, thereby preventing cramps, ligament damage, and stress on the veins. Handy ways to stay hydrated include always carrying a reusable water bottle, ordering water instead of soda at restaurants, and including water in your daily bedtime routine. Staying hydrated is simple, easy and should be included as a lifestyle habit to improve our health.
EXERCISE AT LEAST 3 DAYS A WEEK
As we keep running around to get past our daily life commitments, there isn’t much room left to exercise every day. However, if you can just set aside three days in a week to work out, your odds of staying healthy and in shape will go up significantly.
Therefore, we recommend including 30 to 60 minutes of moderate to intense exercise like walking, jogging, running, skipping, cycling, swimming, or strength training at least three days a week.
If you are crunched for time to visit a gym or the weather doesn’t allow you to exercise outdoors, it’s a good idea to invest in home exercise equipment along with personalised training sessions, such as those provided by OneFitPlus. With indoor equipment, you have the luxury to exercise whenever you want in the comfort and privacy of your home.
Some kind of physical activity is always better than no activity at all. With regular practice, you will start to remember how to include physical activity in daily life. Even if you have 5 to 10 minutes of multiple activity sessions spread over the day, you can reap tremendous health benefits. With the advent of the digital age, it’s also fast, easy, and straightforward to keep constant track of your health and fitness parameters and schedule your activities accordingly. Our multi-functional
OneFitPlus App helps you track your daily workout and compiles all your data such as calories burnt, pulse, sleep, BP, water consumed in one place. So take advantage of these resources to stay fit and healthy.
