ElderExercise

When I found out about having high blood pressure and cholesterol on top of being overweight (didn’t mind much about being overweight), I participated in a workshop in hospital, during which we were advised about eating habits, (they refused to call it dieting), and exercising.

Each of us was questioned about things they enjoyed to help us find activities that would make us move, doing something we liked.
One of my prescription was to go to a museum or exhibition, once a week, wearing my pedometer and stay there, say one hour the first time (I had said that after an hour, I felt exhausted) and the next week, try to add five minutes to that, and the week after, do a little more and so on.

I said that I never thought that going to an exhibition didn’t feel like exercising to me and the physiotherapist said that it sure beat lying on your couch! She had a point.
She said that every little thing counted, including not sitting in the subway, or when you are in a waiting line somewhere.

Then I told her that one of my friends lived on the sixth floor and that as she had a lift, I used to walk up to the third floor and then call the elevator and take it to the sixth floor.
She suggested that I was out of breath because I was trying to do it fast and that to start with, it was not the point. The point was to climb up to the sixth floor TAKING MY TIME. Well, you won’t believe this, but it had never even occurred to me that it was OK to take my time. I thought exercise meant suffering.

It’s been quite a while now, that I have not taken a seat in the subway (I do on buses though, because they are very unstable), and that I can stay longer and longer in a museum and gallery and not get tired as fast as I used to and that when I visit my 6th-floor friend, I climb up the six floors in no hurry.

Please let’s share your tips.

And feel totally free, if you have an idea for a tip or trick, to write your own! This is not MY column, or blog, but ours.