If you’ve been trying to exercise regularly this winter, you’ve run into a formidable opponent – brutal winter weather. And if you’ve given up trying to stay active, well, who can blame you? Winter seems determined to keep us on our couches and under our blankets this year. Regardless of where you live, you’ve probably dealt with bitter temperatures, ridiculous wind chills, and unusual amounts of snow for months on end. And in many areas, that pattern seems determined to continue. It’s enough to send even the most avid exerciser into hibernation until spring.
But even though staying active takes a huge amount of effort when the weather won’t cooperate, don’t give in to the lure of your couch and blankets. The health benefits of exercise outweigh the hassles, even when it’s ridiculously cold outside. And as an added bonus, regular exercise may help you ward off the winter blues. Here are five simple ways to stay active and fit between now and the arrival of beautiful, warm, sunny weather:
- Wear an activity monitor every day. A pedometer, FitBit, or other activity monitor keeps track of the number of steps you take each day. Health experts recommend taking 10,000 steps per day (or working up to that level), and most of us probably won’t meet that goal without a reminder. If you have a sedentary job like I do, or otherwise spend a lot of time sitting, your normal activity level is probably less than 4,000 steps per day. So wear a monitor that will remind you to get up and move throughout the day. My FitBit reminds me to get up and walk through my office building twice a day and to hop on the treadmill for 20 minutes at lunch. Those simple activities plus 30 minutes of walking after work allow me to accumulate 10,000-11,000 steps on most days.
- Set a fitness or health goal. Two months from now, most of us will be enjoying spring weather. What do you want to achieve by the time spring rolls around? Maybe you’d like to be able to run a race, complete a charity walk, or enjoy a hike in the woods. Perhaps you want to be fit enough to play soccer or take a long bike ride with your kids. Or maybe you want to lose 10 pounds or tone up for spring and summer. Set a goal that regular exercise will help you achieve, and create reminders and rewards that help you work toward that goal.
- Get organized. Staying active in cold, rainy or snowy weather takes planning and organization. So figure out what exercises or activities will work for you, then get organized so you can do them easily. For example, store all of your exercise clothes in one location, so you aren’t slowed down by a lost sock or missing sweatshirt. Put any equipment you’ll need (e.g., hand weights, jump rope, stability ball) in one easy-to-access location. Or, if you plan to exercise with online videos, take a few minutes to bookmark your favorites and save all of the bookmarks in a folder. That way you’ll be able to find them instantly when you’re ready to exercise.
- Use every indoor activity resource you can access. Some people like to exercise outside in cold or yucky, but I’m not one of them. If you aren’t either, you need to get creative and resourceful. Yes, you can exercise in your living room every day, but that gets boring. So identify indoor exercise resources you can access and use them to break up the monotony of the same old thing. For example, two large churches in my community have indoor walking tracks that anyone can use, either for free or for a rock-bottom price. Community rec centers often provide indoor fitness facilities, some public schools open their gyms to the community during non-school hours, and some employers provide fitness facilities in the workplace. Find out what resources are available to you and use them.
- Take advantage of any break in the weather to get outside and move. When the sun comes out and the wind dies down, get outside whenever possible. Just being out in the natural light boosts your mind and body, and cold, fresh air (within reason!) invigorates you. Take a walk, try out some ice skates, or go sledding with the kids. Just get outside and move whenever the most vicious of the winter weather takes a break.
The cold weather will end eventually, and you want to be fit and ready to go when spring finally arrives. So follow these simple steps and stay active throughout the last few weeks of winter.
Carrie Groneman says
GREAT ideas Gaye and I really need to get after it myself. Wish I lived by you and could go walking – maybe I’d do better, lol. Thanks for the motivation and keep up the great work here. Carrie, A Mother’s Shadow
Lisa says
I needed to read this today! I’m so frustrated with the cold, windy winter and craving milder weather and outside activity. It is just around the corner, but in the meantime I need to be a bit creative on ways to be more active again. it’s easy to pull the blanket up and stay inside.
Stacy B says
I joined Planet Fitness and love it! The basic gym membership is just $10 a month. I have the $19.99/month membership so I can take a guest each time. I started out only wanting to go if I had someone to go with me but now I enjoy going by myself. I selfishly think of it as my “me” time. I have so much more energy now that I’m exercising and eating better. My Fitbit helps too – I have the one with the heart rate monitor and I love tracking my workouts to see how many calories I burn. I also use the Fitbit app to track all of my calories. I’ve lost 19 pounds since I started exercising and counting calories. Nothing like your daughter’s upcoming wedding to get you motivated!
GC says
Hi Stacy – Oh, you are doing great! I am going downhill with my FitBit and you are going uphill. And 19 pounds lost is tremendous! I don’t think it’s selfish at all to have that “me” time to exercise – it’s fantastic!
Gaye
bbh999 says
Thursday, I was returning to my home from a business meeting and I turned the corner to find a neighbor being helped by a couple of other neighbor ladies. Mary is 75 years old and considerably overweight. She had been walking her dog – a sweet, huge black Lab. The dog had bolted to go greet a couple of other dogs who had gotten out of their yard, pulled Mary off balance and she fell, apparently injuring some muscle on the outside of her left thigh. When she tried to stand, she incurred excruciating pain in that area. One of the ladies on the scene brought a lawn chair and we got her up into that.
I had her under the armpits when we lifted her and she was so soft and mushy I was afraid that I was going to give her a rotator cuff injury.
She called her daughter to come pick her up and take her home. My car is too small and not suitable for easy entrance and egress. When her daughter got there, she decided to call 911 (my initial suggestion but Mary didn’t want me to).
Once her daughter was there and had made a good decision, I left for home and haven’t heard from anyone about Mary’s condition.
While we were waiting for the daughter to arrive, Mary told us that she was beginning to have trouble standing up from being seated in a chair even before the pain of that fall. She can barely push on something with enough strength with her hands and arms to stand up.
I’m sorry this is so long but I want you to understand the situation. Mary’s problem is not that she’s 75 years old and not that she’s very overweight but that she’s weak. The muscles in her core, her rear and her thighs are too weak to do what’s being asked of them. The only way to remedy this is to do exercises that build strength. Putting a pedometer on her and telling her to go outside more is not going to help.
She needs to do some resistance training and then some balance training when she is strong enough..
There are books on Amazon that have exercise routines that you do sitting in a chair. There are books with exercises you can do lying in your bed. If that’s what it takes to get strong enough to do conventional (upright) resistance training, then do that. But Get Stronger!
Getting stronger can be accomplished in less than 20 minutes a day, two to three days a week – at home – with no equipment other than a mat to keep the sweat off the carpet. Sure getting outside and walking, etc. is good but that’s not what’s going to keep you going and moving competently into old age.
I was turning into that old man who couldn’t get up out of a chair. I started exercising five years ago (69 yo) and within a month or two I was standing up using only the power of the muscles in my thighs (aka the quads) – no pushing on something with my hands. I get down on the floor and back up again, no problem. I used to hate that because it was so difficult for me. All of that improvement came with purely body-weight exercises. At the end of two years of so, I started using light dumbbells and a kettlebell but that wasn’t necessary to be strong enough to be competent in my daily tasks.
Get the Women’s Health Big Book of Exercise and build a resistance training program commensurate with your level of fitness. There is some good dietary advice in there also, in my opinion. Resistance training is also supposed to be good for bone density. Also, you can do these exercises even if there’s 6 feet of snow on the ground outside.
I think it’s the epitome of irresponsibility for a doctor to have an elderly patient such as Mary and not have her on a strength-building program. Is he just waiting for the next broken bone?
My motto is, “You should be stronger than you need to be.” If you do this, you’ll have fewer accidents, fewer injuries and you’ll have an overall better quality of life well into old age.