'I know I should go to the gym more but, really, who's got the time?'

If marathons aren’t your thing, fear not: there are sneaky ways to get fit, from walking the dog to doing the housework

I grew up in the countryside, where there was always physical work to do: heaving muck in the stables, carrying hay bales, weeding the vegetable garden. My sisters and I admired my mother’s constant toiling, while we lay on the grass, turning the pages of novels. When I moved to the city and discovered that people paid money to run on the spot or pretend to push things uphill, I could not get into the spirit of labouring for its own sake. Now I’m in my early 50s, I know I should go to the gym more but, really, who’s got the time?

The late neurosurgeon David Servan-Schreiber once wrote about the transformative effect of a sense of purpose. He described a study in which one group of hotel cleaners were told that their everyday tasks would burn enough calories to help them lose weight. The other group were told to get on with their work. At the end of a week, the first group had put greater effort into their work and had lost weight, unlike the others. The idea is now referred to as non-exercise physical activity, or Nepa. You can improve your fitness levels and burn calories just by doing the stuff you always do around the house – but with vigour.

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from Health & wellbeing | The Guardian http://ift.tt/1TqPYmz
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