Getting Back In Shape After A Sedentary Lifestyle

Welcome to my first post on the wellness 'getting back in shape after a sedentary lifestyle'. I will cover how sedentary people can live a healthy lifestyle. I will give you 25 ways to remain physically active daily, and a weight loss diet for sedentary lifestyle. A bonus, look out for the six health related physical fitness exercises. These are the only ones to undo diseases caused by living a sedentary life.

Sedentary people wouldn't always know health issues they are facing. Living a sedentary lifestyle without knowing what it could do to you, the nagging in the back of our minds sleeps till we decide to get off the couch and do the groove. Yes, I went through that, but it was actually the other people making me realize it. I never understood the importance of exercise till it hit me to be back in shape, and it could for you too. Let me tell you why. Hear my experience.

I have, not a sight but an eye health concern for a few years. I found out after my visit to an ophthalmologist. Other than treatment, she gave me an eye exercise to do and asked if I did any exercises. I told her I didn't, I'm sedentary. She said I needed to hit the gym. She said not yoga but strenuous exercises involving machines of all kinds if I wanted to save my eyes. The motto was to flex, stretch and grip my hands, and muscles of upper body. I was amazed at the treatment.

I had ENT issues for many years. I went to an ENT specialist this year, and found out the issue was not my ear but my nose. Other than the prescription he asked me the same question. And again I thought what did exercise has to do with the nose. And he said I needed to do physical exercises that get my lungs going and me breathless. Whereas the eye specialist prescribed me strenuous, he said I add cardiorespiratory exercises. I left again bewildered, and realized the gravity of the situation.

Sedentary people like me might learn it the hard way to know the importance of exercise. I gave examples to tell you how important it could be to save you from your health issues.

I then joined the gym in 2019 for the first time in my life. I might do a series of posts on the exercises I did there. So let me know if you'd like me to make posts on that. But for now I will talk about all you can do to stay physically fit and active in your everyday life. I would not play a doctor, but what I tried and relate to this post I will tell you all those.

We are more technology bound as time passes by. The ease and stationary entertainment technology provides is restricting our movements. Everything visual is pressurizing our eyes, nerves, and senses. Lockdown got us even more confined within the walls. Now that we can try to get out of that comfort zone we so got used to, and get up from the couch.

How Inactive Lifestyle Affects Your Body

A human body is developed to remain physically active. Short term consequence of a sedentary lifestyle is that you lose muscle mass, strength and endurance. Your bones get weak, causing you to loose mineral content that eventually leads to osteoporosis. Immune system decreases, blood circulation gets poor, ability to break down food gets slower, inflammation increases, and hormonal imbalances occur. You feel sluggish and tired all the time.

After learning how it could affect your body, your first goal now should be to get active. Do the many ways below for getting active from a sedentary lifestyle, and also try if you can follow all or bits of the diet plan given below to feel good too.

Get Un-Sedentary with 25 Health Related Fitness Activities

1. Get up every 20-40 minutes of sitting, stretch and walk about.
2. Do gardening, plant, and water your plants to calm your mind and senses.
3. Do yard works such as shoveling snow or raking leaves.
4. Play with kids.
5. Do physical chores that involve body, leg and feet movement. e.g. vacuuming, floor mopping.
6. Take breaks during TV commercials. Get up and walk a bit, hit the kitchen for water or refilling your food.
7. Get up for breaks if working from home office.
8. Maintain good sitting posture throughout the day. Keep your back straight and don’t hunch, as that would hinder breathing.
9. Dance to any music you play in your house to get your happy hormone, serotonins up.
10. Every time you're talking to someone on the phone, use that time to walk.
11. Walk to the park.
12. Walk your pet.
13. Add a short walk after dinner to keep blood sugar level in check and not to develop insulin resistance.
14. Cycle or walk to the grocery store. 
15. Jog or run with your loved ones to anywhere.
16. Take the stairs up as this would get your blood circulation running.
17. If you can't walk, do chair exercises or pool aerobics.
18. Do home workout for sedentary lifestyle. Get an aerobics DVD or check some from fitness instructors on YouTube.
19. Do head tilts side to side and back to ease neck stiffness.
20. Do stretches and activate your spine muscles. AM and PM, and every time you get up from remaining seated for long.
21. Do trunk rotations side to side while seated and standing to activate spine and surrounding muscles.
22. Bend down and touch opposite toes to stimulate muscles around hip and spine.
23. Do side lateral bends. Without bending forward, do side bends and reach the knee with your hands to stimulate shoulder, neck and mid-section muscles.
24. Do heel raises, stand on your toes and lift yourself up 10-20 times daily.
25. Do pushups against any table height, kitchen island, bed or sofa.
26. See if you can buy a fitness tracker. It would remind you to remain active. If a Fitbit is not in your priorities, download a health tracker app on your smartphone to measure daily calories, steps, heart rate, blood sugar etc.

Best Diet for Sedentary Lifestyle

Sometimes you are sedentary without choice on days, such as when you are bedridden or the lockdown. So you need to eat healthy. It is the same typical healthy diet plan you have already heard of from everywhere. But there is a reason to it. You could gain pounds being sedentary and over eating, and your cholesterol level could get high. If you eat too much sugary foods, your sugar level could peak calling for insulin response. And when that insulin cleans up your blood you could again get more sweet triggers. So first of, get your diet plan made by a nutritionist. I can't emphasize this enough. You'd thank me later. You follow it whenever, at least you'd have it with you. Following a healthy diet plan would make you feel good, and even reduce your medicine volume especially those to do with liver and colon. If you’re looking for a weight loss diet for sedentary lifestyle, this would again apply. You can increase or decrease the amount as per your choice.

You need a diet that fills up your stomach, provides high nutrition, while also promising steady and necessary level of sugar. The diet should be high in nutrition and fiber, and low in calories. Do these;

• Have daily intake of fruits, vegetables, and all plant based diet. These are high in nutrition and fiber, and would keep you full.
• Have lean proteins and healthy fats like chicken, turkey, lean meat, and seafood. Choose grilling or broiling for healthy meat cooking practice. Essential fatty acids and Omega-3 from seafood would also help lowering cholesterol level.
• Eat Whole grains high in fiber. Have oatmeal, barley, granola, whole grain breads, whole wheat pasta, and brown rice.
• Spice up your diet plan with seasonings. Include olive oil, lemon, cinnamon, vinegar, herbs, and salt and pepper. Don't forget nuts and dried fruits. Psst, something can always be mixed with your food if you're not too worried about calories and gaining weight. What I do is when I fix myself steamy vegetables, I squeeze half a lemon, add a teaspoon of melted butter, and some salt and pepper. It tastes so delicious that I easily empty two bowls in one go.
• Have low fat dairy and healthy sugars in your diet such as yogurt, cottage cheese, honey, brown sugar.
• Look out for the red flags. That's right, the power engine of your body - the carbohydrate fuel! Avoid refined carbs, also known as empty calories. As they are processed, they are stripped of vitamins and minerals, white flour, white rice, and refined sugar, for instance. And items of them like cakes, cookies, white bread, pasta, and commercially produced snacks, fast food, and soda.
• Avoid all processed foods including meat.
• Reduce your salt intake. You need to reduce the risk of high blood pressure and water retention.
• Watch out your daily calorie intake. As a rule, minimum intake should be 1200 calories per day according to studies. So don't starve yourself out over fear of following a diet plan. A little bit of other foods is fine as long as you're conscious about living a lifestyle with healthy eating habits.

Six Negative Effects of a Physically Inactive Lifestyle

Inactive lifestyle risks you to six major health concerns.

1. Cardiovascular diseases, 
2. Type 2 diabetes, 
3. Osteoporosis, 
4. Obesity, 
5. Deteriorating mental health, 
6. Increasing risk of premature death.  

This is where health related physical fitness comes in, to reverse adverse effects of living a sedentary lifestyle.

Health Related Physical Fitness Components

Health related physical fitness in general, relates to disease prevention and functional health. Physical fitness determines how efficiently you perform physical tasks and day to day functions. Following regular health related fitness controls weight, prevents chronic disease, boosts energy, improves motor coordination and stress management, and promotes better sleep.

There are eleven components to physical fitness. Out of those, six are health related, and five are skill related. Skill related components are balance, coordination, agility, speed, and reaction time. Getting back to the topic at hand, we are focusing on the six health related physical fitness components i.e. cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular endurance, body composition, flexibility, strength, and power. Let's see each in detail;

Health related physical fitness in general, relates to disease prevention and functional health. Physical fitness determines how efficiently you perform physical tasks and day to day functions. Following regular health related fitness controls weight, prevents chronic disease, boosts energy, improves motor coordination and stress management, and promotes better sleep.

1. Cardiorespiratory endurance: is the ability of your heart and lungs to function continuously. It involves exercising your whole body, giving you efficient heart and lung health, and improved breathing.  These exercises reduce risk of death caused by cardiovascular diseases. This includes aerobic exercises such as walking, jogging, running, cycling, and swimming.
2. Strength: is the maximum force your muscles can produce in a single effort. If you have muscular strength, you can lift heavy objects. This includes muscle resistance exercises that aim to reduce osteoporosis, like weightlifting, planks, side planks, squats, and bridges.
3. Muscular endurance: is the length of time you use muscles without getting fatigued i.e. for how long can you lift a heavy object. Muscular endurance exercises are football, tennis, push-ups, and crunches curl ups.
4. Flexibility: Ability to use joints to full range of motion without injury. Having long joints allow your muscles to work more efficiently. This includes stretches, yoga, gymnastics, and dancing.
5. Power: is the ability to use full strength swiftly, also known as explosive strength. It includes exercises such as long jumps, speed swimming, and sprint.
6. Body composition: is a term used to measure percentage of fat, muscle, and bone in your body. It tells a healthy weight for your body to reduce risk of obesity related diseases. This includes tests like body mass index (BMI), and Skinfold test. According to studies, a normal and average BMI range is approximately 18 to 25.

You would have noticed I emphasized walking in the whole post and might be wondering why. Well, here is to know why running and especially walking is important to undo sedentary side effects.

Benefits of Walking Everyday

Walking stimulates, resets, and connects your whole body, muscles, and brain. It reverses peripheral artery damage that sitting causes your legs. You don't need to buy a treadmill only to walk. Go outside in the open, and walk with an upright posture. Keep your hands free from objects and get your arms going. Get fresh air at night and sunlight vitamin D during the day.

Verdict

A major cause to a sedentary lifestyle is that most of the people have desk jobs. Once they go home they also sit the rest of the day. So your goal should be to get up to gradually increase your daily physical activity. Get conscious if you want to live a healthy lifestyle. Maintain 30 minutes of moderate exercise at least five days a week. Eat a healthy diet. Target a healthy body weight. Quit smoking, and reduce daily alcohol intake. If you do all these, you have a great life expectancy. But if you follow even two or three out of those, you considerably increase your lifespan. 

Start off with aerobic exercises such as walking, bicycling, jogging, running, and swimming. This is the basic, the essential, and the major to reverse your sedentary consequences.

Prevent your diseases instead of treating them later. Walk!