LOCOMOTION
This is simple. We walk, run skip, jog, ride bike, skateboard, scoot, crawl, and any various number of other ways to do it. Without the ability of locomotion, we would require some outside entity to take care of the locomotion aspect of moving, like riding a Rascal (not to say that it isn’t always warranted) around at the grocery store. To be honest though, I would be embarrassed if I were unable to walk enough to get from point A to point B. But people are becoming less capable of locomotion on the regular, and it is almost always self-inflicted why we are becoming less mobile. On a recent trip to Disneyland with my best friend (who is battling cancer), we decided that an electric scooter would make Anthony’s day a lot easier considering he was in the middle of chemo treatments. When we got to the electric scooter rental office in the park, we saw that there was an abundance of obese patrons waiting in line for, and renting what Disney is now calling these scooters as “electric convenience vehicles” (presumably to avoid discrimination lawsuits).
As a professional in the health and wellness industry, it pains me to see people acting completely against their best interest. If those people only knew what they’re doing to their body by leading such unhealthy lifestyles. Something as simple as little as walking can help to regulate one’s own bodyweight without the need to exercise like a training athlete on the daily (though there are plenty of other reasons to exercise and resistance train). Walking has even become a booming industry. With the advancements in fitness technology, companies like Apple and Fitbit (I have been using a Fitbit regularly for a couple years now) have made walking popular and technologically fashionable. These fitness trackers provide their customers with the ability to learn a ton of information that can help change their life. I currently use the Fitbit Surge, which provides awesome feedback for things like tracking my heart rate when I’m training, or my sleep. It tells me how much sleep I get per night, and estimates the number of times that I wake during the night. With that kind of knowledge, it helps me prioritize my time so that I can get the correct amount of quality sleep that I need. Most importantly, they were originally made to track the amount of walking/running we do per day. It makes it much easier for us to know how much exercise we should be doing (at a minimum) per day. Walking is so important that the American Heart Association suggests that we walk 10,000 steps per day in order to maintain our weight and keep our hearts healthy. I was just reading an article in the paper about how people are just giving up on trying to lose weight. People seem to be giving up on life. That has to be one of the saddest realities of our times. Maintaining a healthy weight really is not that hard. With a healthy diet, and plenty of walking, anyone can get their health back on track, and taking back some years that they will hopefully fill with fun and adventures. Regular exercise helps us develop the drive and potential for attaining the goals we want in life. It all starts with a healthy heart.
A simple plan to work into taking 10,000 steps a day can be as easy as starting a daily walking program taking 2,000 steps for one week. Then, add 2,000 steps the following week, adding 2,000 steps every week after until you get to 10,000 steps of walking per day. I also suggest that you walk at least 10,000 steps every single day for a solid 30 days after you start taking 10,000 steps per day. You really want to establish and prioritize this, it can be very difficult to budget the time throughout the day to reach your daily step goals. 30 days will really give you the most amount of time to really build the routine of taking 10,000 steps, or more per day.