Are You Moving Less?

21.10.2020
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I’ve recorded this email as a video as well. You can find it on Facebook or Instagram.

Please do go and watch the videos if you haven’t already. If nothing else, they are a pretty accurate documentation of the remarkable amount of coldsores I’ve had over the last few months!

Likewise, would you like me to make some videos with different, or supplementary, content to these newsletters? Perhaps cooking videos and maybe some workout ones too?


So, the Covid rollercoaster continues, and now the weather is less cheerful, I think we all need to be paying a lot more attention to one of the biggest side effects of being home more: the radical reduction in movement.

Working from home, less ‘popping into town’ here and there, less meeting friends, both indoor and outdoor exercise options feeling less appealing – and more expectations of being available for frequent video calls – all contribute to the huge reduction in daily activity that almost everyone I know is experiencing.

Those small bursts of activity, which we used to do without thinking, add up much more than you think. In fact, keeping generally active accounts for a massive amount of energy use each day. More calories than most of us are likely to use during an average workout.

The physical and mental health effects of reduced movement are huge, plus the obvious result of burning less calories each day is gaining weight.

So, it is well worth thinking up ways you can increase your overall activity levels. This is difficult, as something which was unintentional and almost unavoidable a few months ago now requires intention, habit and routine to put into place – but the effort is well worth it.

Committing to a workout most days is a great start, but generally moving during the day is at least as important. Perhaps you could make a point of going for a decent walk every day, as well as walking as much of any journeys as you can (even if you just park at the furthest point of the car park).

If you are largely stuck in front of the computer, perhaps you could make a point of doing, say, 10 star jumps every time you finish a phone call. You could find some sort of active job to spread across the day too – we all know that there are always jobs to do which tick the ‘keeping moving’ box. Sweep up fallen leaves, give the house a clean….

It really doesn’t matter what it is that you do, but it does matter that you are moving, and it matters more than you think.

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