Exercise is a supplement! Just like the vitamins you take, exercise is the supplement to movement.
Yes you should exercise, just like you should enjoy your green juice, fruit and vegetable supplements, and omega fish oils but you should also be eating all of those things as well.
With exercise if you want to be considered active you shouldn’t just be doing your hour long workout and calling it a day. No this is your supplement to activity. Activity is what you are doing the rest of those 12 hours.
Are you moving a lot throughout the day? Do you try to go for walks, stretch your body, get your heart rate up, and move into different positions or are you sitting in the same position throughout the day?
It is time we look at exercise as an add on to our daily movement. So how can we get more movement into our day?
Start to stack your habits-I talk about this at length all the way back in Episode 2 called Stack your Habits. (provide ideas)
Go for quick walks throughout the day, doesn’t need to be far or fast, just work on moving more
Stop outsourcing your movement to someone else.
Play with your kids, go outside and throw a ball around, play at the playground with them
Create movement by changing your position throughout the day. For those of you working moms, its not all lost. Try changing how you sit, rotate and move your hips in your chair, slide your ribs back and forth, all of these things help to move your body into different positions to help keep the joints lubricated and the lymphatic system flowing. Move your feet, this helps too!!!!
Take time as a family going for an evening walk or bike ride (Ep 82: Importance of Walking After Dinner) or play an active game inside 9ep 83: Games to keep you and your family active)
Welcome to raising healthy humans, a podcast created for busy moms, where you can easily find info on health and wellness for your family. Join Courtney, a health coach movement and posture specialist and founder of form fit and active and supportive community where she helps busy moms move more here on raising healthy humans podcast. She shares personal life experiences, training, knowledge and conversations with other health and wellness experts. So you can raise healthy humans. If you've heard me say it once, you've heard me say it 1000 times that my goal is to help you move more throughout your day. And today I want to speak with you about how I think of exercise compared to movement. So when I think of exercise, as a personal trainer, I believe exercise is a supplement. Just like the vitamins you take, exercise is the supplement to movement. Yeah, yes, you should exercise, just like you should enjoy the green juice, the fruit and vegetable supplements, omega, fish oils, all of that. But you should also make sure that you're eating all of those things as well. I wouldn't say enjoy that fruit and vegetable supplement. And don't worry about ever eating, you know, an apple or some strawberries. No, we add the supplements on to help create this, basically to bridge the gap between what we do eat. And, you know, providing more nutrients. Same thing with exercise. I can say I know numerous people who exercise, they do a great job exercising, they work out for their hour. You know, they they do it consistently every day, you know, five days a week, whatever. And they're consistent. But then, the rest of the time they sit there sitting not being lazy. I don't mean it like that, but just not actively moving. They're working a lot. When they're at work, they're not moving a lot, or when they're home on the weekends, they're sitting a lot, watching a lot of TV, that type of thing. And this is where the problem arises. With exercise, if you want to be considered active, you shouldn't be just doing your hour long workout and calling it a day. I remember a few years back, people were very and maybe people are still into it. I don't really pay attention to it. Because I understand now that a calorie isn't just a calorie. So a lot of people used to enter their information on fitness pal. And I would have people say like, well, I come here every meeting like come here being my workout classes. I come here every single day. So I would say I'm very active. But no, one hour of exercise does not mean you are very octave. This is your supplement. Exercise is your supplement to Activity. Activity is what you are doing the rest of those 12 hours. Are you moving a lot through the day? Do you try to go for walks or stretch your body? Get your heart rate move up and move into different positions throughout the day? Or are you sitting in that same position over and over? This should hopefully encourage some of you because for those of you who aren't big into exercise, understand that exercise is your supplement exercise is your children supplement it honestly, I would really encourage staying away from the word exercise with your kids as long as possible. Because it unfortunately has a negative connotation for a lot of people. So if we look at it as a positive thing, and we're going to go out in move and we're going to clay that creates a different feeling for all of us I would think if I say I'm going to go out for you know to play with my children, that's different than me going out to exercise with my children right so So that is what I want you to start thinking about with your movement with your children's movement. And let's focus on the activity throughout the day rather than the actual exercise. How can we get more movement into our everyday. So if you've listened to past episodes, episode two is called stack your habits. That is where I would start, start stacking your habits, start looking at what you are doing daily, and see how you can add in movement. Now some of it can be exercises, some of it can be like, Okay, I'm waiting for my shower to heat up, and I'm gonna get down and do push ups. That's what Dr. Mark Hyman does. And these are things that you can start to practice that are going to help enrich your daily activities. So another one is to think about how you're moving and movement doesn't just need to be exercise. So another thing that I like to recommend, I'll give you a couple that I have mentioned in the stack your habits. And if you've followed me for a while you've heard these all. But one is to practice breathing when you sit down and drink your coffee, or while your coffee is brewing. Because breathing is one of those things that we take for granted. And a lot of us aren't breathing fully. That doesn't mean breathing deeply, to different meanings, deeply is filling the lungs up fully is breathing into the ribs, fully expanding that ribcage fully. And there's lots of little muscles in between those ribs, that if you're not breathing into your ribs fully and they're not getting full expansion, those muscles aren't going to work. And what happens when they don't work, then we are more likely to deal with cracked ribs slipped rib, where a rib slips out of place, those type of things are occur more often when those muscles become weak. So we need to make sure that we are practicing full breathing. Another one that I've mentioned is stretching. So stretching, taking, practicing a calf stretch while you brush your teeth. Because when we are in certain positions throughout the day, certain muscles tighten up, tighten up, get weak and don't go to their full length, which creates tension and tightness, which creates a sin pain, which creates injuries or lack of mobility, lack of movement, because it's sore every time you move. So these are things that you need to make sure you're doing is it exercise? No. Is it movement? Yes. Okay, so start with stack your habits. And think of the little things little things you can do. Just twisting in your seat when you're at work, tilting your head to one side and then to the other side for neck stretches. These are movements, these are creating different movement patterns in your body. I think I've hit that one home, hopefully. Number two, both quick walks throughout the day. It doesn't need to be far or fast, just work on moving more. And they've done numerous studies on how you know you always hear make sure you're walking at least 30 minutes a day. And it has been shown it does not matter if you are doing 30 whole minutes at a time. Or if you're doing quick 10 minute bursts. That doesn't matter. As long as you're getting about 30 minutes in the day. You are recommended movement for heart health in the way of diabetes and heart attacks and things like that. Now, I would say that you need to get your heart rate up a little bit higher at times. So sometimes that leisurely walk may not be what you are going to focus on, but also doing you know bursts of faster pace workouts as well. A third way that you can work on getting more movement into your day is stop outsourcing your movement to someone else. Let's look at what we can do in our daily life to create more movement. Now, for those of you with little kids I do want to say this does not apply to you. Because I remember when my kids were little, and they're both sleeping, and I had to get milk, I would be so frustrated that I had to wake them up from their nap, take them into the grocery store, so that I could grab one thing of milk, one gallon of milk. So this does not apply to you. But for those of you who either, if you have older children that are either with you or at school, this is for you. Instead of sitting and waiting for someone to bring, say your groceries out, go in for them. Especially for those when you only get five or six items, right, that's a quick stop, you can do that you can have your kids come in with you. And you can work together to get all the things of course, depending on your children's age, but just think about it to where you are not outsourcing all of your movement to someone else. And like I said, this depends on age of children and things like that, as to whether or not this is going to be you. And also your capability of movement. Okay, the fourth one is play with your kids, get outside, throw the ball around, fly at the playground with them, one of the best things that we can do is to hang on the monkey bars. Do you remember when you were little, when you used to just sweep across those monkey bars, no problem. And then as you get older, it becomes really difficult to do, we need to be hanging a little bit more, it's really good for our shoulders to be able to hang. And actually, our shoulder mobility or lack thereof may be affecting your pelvic floor. So being able to kind of release, that tension in that shoulder may help to release some of the back muscles that may be affecting your breathing pattern, which may in turn be affecting your pelvic floor. So that is something as well. So make sure you're getting outside and playing with your kids. And I know that when I have gotten outside with my kids, they are more apt to play and stay out longer. And what's always so funny, I remember one Christmas, we got a basketball hoop for my my boys. And we kept asking them to go out and play and they weren't doing it. I don't know, it was I mean, it wasn't right after they got it. Obviously, it was past the time where it started to kind of wear off the excitement of it. So one night, we went out there and we were just standing outside, and like shooting hoops with each other. And then the kids came outside it was like one by one one of them came out, then the other one came out and then the other one. And then we were all playing like pig or horse was one of those games. And then we were we they were having fun and they were getting involved and they were playing with each other. And then we just kind of stood off to the side. We stayed out there, we stood off to the side. And it wasn't like Mom, please play with me. It wasn't any of that. They continued to play for an extended period of time. But for everybody decided that they were done and they were ready to come in. So sometimes it's not even going out there and spending 30 minutes playing with him or an hour, you know what I mean? But taking that initial step, and then once they start playing, then you can step back because they realize how much fun they're having. And then, you know, you can step back and watch them. So that's another thing. And then create movement by changing your position throughout the day. For those of you that are working moms, it's not all lost. You can change up the way that you sit in your chair. You can lift one leg up, bring it up, you know, not more like a figure four. If you know that figure four stretch, you can bring one leg up and hold it in this position. And then start tilting your pelvis forward and back. You can bring your feet down and move your ankles start circling your ankles and pumping them to help bring that blood flow back up through the legs up towards your heart. You can slide your ribs back and forth. So I tend to notice that people get stuck to where they tend to lean to one side a lot. So then that creates a lot of tension on the other, like the low back area. So just seeing in your seat can you slide your ribs from left to right? All of these things are helping you move your body into different positions to help keep the joints lubricated, and the lymphatic system flowing. So don't be afraid to move through these different positions. And then the last one is take time as a family, going for an evening walk or a bike ride. I had episode 82. It talks it spoke about the importance of walking after dinner, and the effects on your blood sugar when you do that, and then I also had Episode 90, or I'm sorry, Episode 83 gains to keep you and your family active. If going out for a walk is not something you're able to do based on weather or the location that you are in, there are things that you can do in your house, that creates activity as well. But taking some time in the evening to create movement before you go to bed. And it doesn't mean getting your heart rate up. Because then you know once you get your heart rate up in the evening, your basal temperature rises and it makes it more difficult for you to kind of calm down cool down to get ready for a good night's sleep. So I've made I wouldn't recommend that so much. But more, you know, a fun game where y'all are playing or moving and walking around or some stretching, any of those things will help. So I hope this encourages you to feel like maybe you don't need to exercise as hard as you are if you just start adding more movement into your day. Or for those who aren't exercising. Understanding that. That's okay. And if you just make sure you're finding ways to move more throughout your day, that's going to help you become more active. And then start to slowly add in exercise like a supplement. So that is it for today. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope this provided you some information. Try one of these, let me know which one you try. Make sure to join us over in the moms raising healthy humans community where we have lots of exciting things going on. And we have monthly challenges for you to participate in as well. Have a wonderful day and make sure to keep moving. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to listen to our podcast. We hope you found this information valuable and can incorporate it into your family's life. Make sure to check out our show notes for all the important links available. Come join us on Facebook and moms raising healthy humans community page. Also please check out our wide range of memberships, family monthly focus ideas, challenges, live events and on demand and live workouts, meal plans and so much more head to form fit online.com And as always keep moving