The Gallery: Fitness

Posted by Jacq in Blog, Photos, Travel | 11 comments

Who has time for fitness? Not me. I have 4 children to be ferried around, 2 dogs who need walking, a house that needs cleaning, words that need writing and clients who need seeing. I have no time for running/ the gym/swimming/cycling/ zumba/fitness!

That’s what I thought anyhow. I was wrong.

Unless they have mobility issues, everyone has time for fitness, because you don’t have to set aside a period of time or a chunk of money to improve your fitness. All you have to do is walk, and climb stairs; things that most people do every day anyhow. You don’t have to be thin to be fit either. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s possible to be cardiovascularly fit even if you are very overweight. Increasing your fitness may or may not help you lose weight, that’s a debate for another blog post, but increasing your fitness certainly brings with it some genuine health benefits that include reducing your risk of a stroke or heart disease, lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, preventing type 2 diabetes and improving your mood.

The current ‘experts’ ( whoever they are; they seem to change with monotonous regularity) recommend that adults should walk at least 10 000 steps, and climb 10 flights of at least 10 stairs every day to keep fit. 10 000 steps is around 5 miles for the average person and I find I manage this amount on the days I do a couple of school runs, a good hours dog walk and a quick dash around the shops. I wear a pedometer to keep track of what I do each day and this often gets me out for an extra walk if I’m severely lacking in the step department. It encourages me to walk just a little bit further that I would normally, and I also get out of my seat in front of the computer more often.

I find climbing 10 flights of stairs a day more difficult. My pedometer counts flights of stairs for me so I don’t have to wear my brain out trying to remember a number. I work downstairs so I make myself use the upstairs toilet when ever I need to. And when I’m out with the dogs I tend to try and go up as many hills as possible, as my pedometer helpfully converts slopes to flights of stairs .

So even in my ordinary day-to-day life, I find it quite easy to do my 10 000 and 10 most days. But while we are on holiday, we often have the opportunity to climb flights of stairs or hills that we wouldn’t encounter at home. The steps pictured above are from the theatre of the Roman ruins in Jerash, Petra, and if I recall correctly the climb to the top rewarded me with a total of 5 flights of stairs in one go! I was also completely out of breath. It was a steep and uneven climb, with nothing except my husband to hold on to, and there wasn’t much of a view of anything except the stage of the theatre, which suddenly seemed a very long way down.

For more photos with the theme of fitness, check out The Gallery this week.