Reach 150 minutes of exercise per week mainly by doing errands
I hope this post will be meaningful to some readers. Some weeks are busy. So instead of adding workouts, I enjoy sneaking exercise into things I’m already doing. This week we cover exercises involving errands and home activity.
I think errands count – do you?
Goal: 150 minutes
Theme: Functional, everyday movement
Monday – 20 minutes walk to stores
Walk to get groceries. Or any sort of shopping. I collect my shopping list then park nearby so that it’s about a 10-minute walk in each direction. I walk over with an empty shopping bag or two. When I emerge, I head back to car or home, carrying my cloth bags the whole way back. I also carry granola bars in case I need a snack.
Tuesday – 15 minutes of stairs
Stair repeats at home or at work. Five minutes, three times in the day.
Micro-sessions are wildly underrated. My heart rate rises for sure, every time!
Here’s one errand I enjoy: I intentionally carry only one or two things if I’m taking groceries up, so that I need to repeat the stairs several times. The key here is constant movement. In my case, I go up the stairs, through a living room, and spend just a moment putting a couple cans of soup away.
Suppose you don’t groceries to pack upstairs, or a staircase in your home for that matter. Pretend! Go somewhere like a library or shopping mall exterior that offers a staircase. Or indoors. Wear a backpack or carry a small object in each hand, if you want extra weight.
Keep your body open (don’t curl up nor over-arch your back) and purposely upright. It’s good exercise and we don’t want the back or shoulders to be straining as you climb stairs.
Wednesday or Thursday – 30 minutes bodyweight exercises
Do some common exercises that don’t require equipment. Do a gentle warmup no matter what exercises work for you. Common examples include:
- Squats
- Lunges
- Slow arm circles
- Pushups (against wall, bench, or floor)
- Ab crunches
- Side plank
- Short yoga sequences with sustained poses
Top up the moves with a walk down your street and back.
Saturday – 45 minutes long walk
Long walk with purpose: scouting yard sales, photography walk, walk to a cafe, walk-and-talk with a neighbour. Keep it simple and fun.
Sunday – 40 minutes home activity
These are the ones I get some exercise benefits from: cutting thorny things out of the yard; sweeping the deck, washing the inside or outside of my truck, and organizing closets. Do it briskly.
Total: 150 minutes
The magic here? No major motivation needed to be crafted. Just the desire to exercise and become a little more fit. This type of exercise is like brushing your teeth; it’s a good and beneficial habit.
It’s easy to see the benefits.
Next week, we’ll do this one more time and see what types of exercise might suit you.