Fit Mommy Friday: Useful Exercise

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encouraging each other to care well for the bodies God has given us

My personal goal is to regain strength after a debilitating illness so that I can live a healthy, active life with my family.

Your goal may be to lose weight, look better, feel better, or run a marathon. Whatever it is, please join Fit Mommy any time, no matter what your current level of fitness is. You can check in using the comments at the bottom of this post.

It’s spring, and that means our outside life begins again–pulling weeds, walking back and forth to the garden, planting, pruning, inspecting….  This is all good exercise, but it is easy to overdo, so I’m trying to be mindful of how much I actually do.  As an experiment, I’m trying to spend between 30 and 90 minutes a day on useful exercise, spread out throughout the day, with breaks as needed.  Often on Saturdays when I’m cleaning the house, I get too tired, and I need to avoid that.   So far, things have been going well because I’m conscious of the need to pace myself.  A benefit of being mindful about this is that I do some ‘useful exercise’ every day now; it’s amazing how much can get done in little bits of time if I don’t need to take days off in between to rest and recover from working to exhaustion!

For me, ‘useful exercise’  includes hanging out laundry on our hard-to-pull wash line, Saturday housecleaning, our daily 30 minutes of garden time (or spring cleaning if it’s raining outside),  grocery shopping, lugging books, running up and down the stairs, and daily household jobs.

Here’s how I did with my goals this week.

Record my fitness accomplishments each day…Yes.

Do 10 repetitions of my eye exercises 5 days a week …Missed a day.

Go for a daily walk and average 6200 steps a day … I went for 4 walks, including one with my son and his new airgun.  Very exciting. 

However, my pedometer is acting up again; depending on what clothes I’m wearing, it may register all of my steps or 2/3 of them or even only 1/2 of them.  Each day I did a calibration and multiplied the recorded steps by how the pedometer and I were getting along. So here are my estimated steps:  6000, 7000, 6500, 6500, 6800, 6900.  I suppose the most important thing for me to do is just to go for a good walk each day but stop before I feel too tired.

Do 6 repetitions of my physio exercises 5 days a week … No, I did not do all those repetitions.  Something about those exercises seems to aggravate my neck.  I need to double check that I’m doing them correctly.

Do 5 repetitions of my organ keyboard and pedal exercises, 5 days a week… How about 4 1/2 times?  And I’ve added some more exercises.  My fingers are definitely more nimble than they used to be, and my arms seem to have more endurance.

Be usefully active for 30-90 minutes a day, 6 days a week …  I cleaned out the flower gardens, scrubbed the bathroom walls, swept the floor, hung up many loads of laundry, and moved books around. 

Avoid sugar five days a week … No.  We had company and cake last weekend, Miss 14 developed a delicious gluten-free banana bread recipe, and I enjoyed some chocolate peanut confection.

Eat lots of vegetables, including fresh ones, and yoghurt … Lots of yoghurt and a moderate number of vegetables.

Relax daily…Yes.  Sometimes I took naps, and sometimes I rested at the computer.  The only trouble is that I’ve linked my personal Bible reading to my afternoon nap; if I skip the nap, I often forget about the Bible reading.

Have fun with the kids, including active fun…Yes, we walked, gardened, canvassed for the Cancer Society, shopped, and cared for our property.

How about you? Did you exercise, eat well, and relax happily this week?

Let’s encourage each other to care well for the bodies God has given us. Please link up your health and fitness post in the comments below, and don`t forget to link back here from your post. Then enjoy visiting and encouraging other Fit Mommies just like you.

Note: Fit Mommy Friday is the Health and Fitness Check-In column of The Christian Home Carnival.