Our mission this week is to take the stairs wherever we can, instead of using the elevator or escalator. If we don't have access to stairs, we need to get an extra 30 minutes of activity in some other way. The idea is to find little ways to get fit that you can sneak into each day.I work from my home office, so the only stairs I have to climb are the ones in my house. I decided to take extra trips up and down the stairs when I don't necessarily have to use them. Every day this week, I have gone up and down both sets of stairs several extra times...the ones that lead upstairs to the bedrooms and office, and the ones that lead to our finished basement.
This is a really good thing for me. Every summer, when we go to Huntington Beach here in Cleveland, there are some really killer steps. They are numerous and quite steep. Going down to the beach is not so bad, but coming back up to street level always gets me. I get out of breath and my legs are very shaky...I have to stop and sit down on the closest bench, and it takes me a while to recover. (And at the top of those steps, there is an ice cream stand...doesn't that figure???)
I am determined that by next summer I will not have any problems with those beach steps. I also researched stair climbing, and found that it is actually a sport! You can check out more about that at www.stairclimbingsport.com . You can burn twice as many calories stair climbing than walking...now there's some extra incentive!
I also snuck in some other extra exercise this week...I parked further away at the bank, grocery store, etc. and got more walking in instead of just finding the closest spot. I've also been doing leg lifts in front of the computer. (You're picturing that now, aren't you?) It all adds up, and I will continue to find more ways to fit in little workouts throughout the day.
