After not exercising for 7 months (because of my foot surgery), I got the green light from my foot physiotherapist to slowly start exercising again on 1 February. Walking has always been my exercise of choice, so that's where I'm starting. I'm only supposed to actively walk for 20 minutes once a week for 6 weeks, and then increase it to twice a week for the next 6 weeks, and so on.
What is working for me is being generally more active. My job is quite sedentary, sitting in front of a computer for long periods of time during the week. So I get up and walk to the copy machine often during the day, I take the longer route to the loo, I do some slow mall walking during the week. I'm moving again...
I bought a little Fitbit Zip which I'm loving, I didn't want the big chunky (ugly!) Fitbit bangle. I clip the Fitbit Zip to my bra under my clothes and off I go; it tracks my steps, mileage, and calories burned each day. I also add how much water I drink. I sync it at night to my iPhone and I can see how I'm doing on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. As my foot gets better, I'll increase my daily walking distance.
Having the Fitbit Zip also helps when my foot gets sore; I check back and see what distance I walked over the past 2 days or so, and I've usually overdone the exercise, so I know that I need to slow down a bit.
I've also added a 7-minute workout to my walking routine. This is a free app which I downloaded to my iPhone. I've lost a huge amount of functional fitness over the past 7 months, so just 7 minutes of exercise was exhausting for me when I started on 1 February. 7 minutes of jumping jacks, sit ups, lunges, plank, pushups, step-ups, squats, side plank...oh my gosh, it kicked my butt!! Slowly slowly...making progress.
Well done on getting back to walking. Don't overdo it...you will get there.
ReplyDeleteFantastic news that you can exercise-walk again Ali ~~ Don't overdo it.
ReplyDeleteI need to get my butt into gear again.