Just because I am a doctor, and encourage patients every day to exercise, doesn’t mean that I don’t have my own issues with getting sufficient exercise. Long hours, tiring days, family obligations, illness: they are all stumbling blocks, no matter what your occupation.
I have been recording my exercise weekly, mostly to keep myself accountable for reaching my goal (sometimes this works, sometimes I miss). If anyone reads this, I hope they will take this as encouragement to keep going, acknowledgement that it isn’t always easy.
As a reminder, my goal is to make sure that I get my 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise (or 75 minutes of high intensity exercise, which probably won’t happen).
This week I took a vacation at home; I was interested to see how much exercise I would get on vacation without the stimulation of tourism. Or, would I get off the couch and get moving?
- Saturday: An indoors day. No official exercise.
- Sunday: Got a lift to the business district and then walked home (distributing books and DVDs to some Little Free Libraries on the way). 36 minutes of walking.
- Monday: Did some walking–actually, quite a lot of walking. The first walk was to shake off stiffness after sorting papers for hours. I checked on my deposits at the Little Free Libraries (still there). After dinner, my husband and I went for another walk; but the end, I felt pretty tired. Overall, 78 minutes of walking today.
- Tuesday: Spent some time in the garden pulling weeds. I never am sure if this counts as exercise–I spend most of the time sitting in the grass, frankly–but considering how sore I felt for days afterwards, I think it counts. 1.5 hours. In the evening we went to a baseball game; walking to and from the field took a while: 56 minutes.
- Wednesday: Met a friend for coffee (got a lift there) and then walked home. 38 minutes.
- Thursday: Date night! My husband and I walked to a nearby museum, and then a restaurant. We were stuffed, and walked home quite slowly. Overall, we logged 64 minutes.
- Friday: Walked in the late afternoon (great for getting the fidgets out after a day spent indoors). I checked on my Little Free Library donations–1 had been taken! 34 minutes walking.
Total: 306 minutes walking. Verdict: Vacation is good for my exercise, even if I don’t travel! The walking is good, but I’m feeling out of shape as far as strength. I signed up to work with a personal trainer at the end of the week; we’ll see how that shakes out.