Health Icons
Lucile Woodward is back to inspire you! In this guest post, she gives tips on how to achieve surprising results and go beyond your goals.
Are you following Lucile Woodward’s advice? Awesome! In this blog post, she answers the question: How can you easily integrate exercise into your everyday life? How can you organize your workout sessions and keep them going?
Plan your sessions in advance
Add your exercise sessions to your calendar, along with your professional meetings and medical appointments. It’s very important to have your exercise scheduled in advance so you don’t have to cancel at the last moment.
Having workouts scheduled on your calendar will help you to plan ahead. You will be able to organize your calendar in advance so that you can make time for these sessions. This will keep you from trying to cram them into the same day or the day before, or letting yourself get caught up in the false excuse of lack of time. “Too bad, no time. I’ll exercise later.”
Move a little every day
No need to plan 7 workouts per week to stay in top shape. We can aim to move a little each day to fight against our sedentary lifestyles.
How? Simply integrate a short walk into your lunch break, get up from your chair at least once every hour if you have a sedentary office job, take the stairs rather than escalators at the train station, commute to work on a bike, or go out and shop for dinner instead of having it delivered.
1000 steps here, 2000 steps there… It may sound silly, but at the end of the week it makes a real difference. This week, we’re launching a new challenge: walk a minimum of 50,000 steps—about 7,000 steps a day. Ouch—a real challenge! The trick? Plan a long walk on the weekend or a long running outing to reach your goal without difficulty.
Get enough sleep
Yes, it is essential! Because if you exercise more than usual, you’re going to need to recover well. And recovery requires restful sleep that’s long enough and high quality.
To sleep well, I recommend that you go to bed at a fixed time during the week to get your body used to a regular cycle. Also, don’t look at any screens (smartphones, TV, computers, etc.), if possible, after 9 p.m. The blue light produced by these screens disrupts melatonin, the sleep hormone.
If you have trouble falling asleep, avoid coffee and caffeinated drinks at the end of the day, and opt for gentle activities such as stretching or yoga, which will soothe you and prepare your body for sleep.
Good sleep will affect your energy and sports performance, but also your weight. You will better regulate your healthy weight and reduce fat storage by taking care of your sleep.
So: ready to start your exercise routine? To help motivate you, Withings is offering a chance to win a Body+ scale. To enter, simply head to the Withings Community Facebook group and share the number of steps you’ve taken at the end of our week-long challenge!
