Cultivating healthy habits during quarantine
Fitness is a balancing act. Diet and exercise are both important factors in managing your health. While diet can be easy to manage, you might feel that being at home has affected how much daily exercise you are able to successfully complete.
It can be tricky to find motivation to exercise when you are used to going to a gym. Maybe you miss taking classes with your friends. Luckily, there is a way around it.
Here are some tips and tricks to stay on top of your health during this time:
Please be mindful that Ramadan is upon us. This may change the hours in which you choose to exercise. Make sure you do not exert yourself in an attempt to exercise while fasting.
Utilize the different resources
There are a variety of online classes or videos to choose from. YouTube has many great options. You can find low impact, HIIT (high-intensity interval training), or strength-training videos that best suit your fitness goal. There are also different apps available to choose from depending on what you’re looking for.
It is the little things that count
In the evenings after breaking your fast, go for a walk. This way, you can spend time with your family and get in your steps. Please remember to maintain social distance while doing so.
Other easy ways to get in a few extra movements throughout the day are:
- Running up and down the stairs a few times
- Standing every 30 minutes and stretching to get your blood flowing.
- Helping around the house with household chores.
Ease yourself into fitness
There is no need to push yourself to exercise. You can always start slowly. There are activities like pilates, meditating, and yoga which are also very good ways of keeping healthy.
Miss your group workouts?
Use video calls with your friends as a time to get in some exercise and social interaction. Think of this as a way of keeping yourself accountable for exercising and not feeling alone in the process. Better yet, you and your friends can come up with your own workout circuit to enjoy together.
Once you get into the routine of working out, you can make a schedule for specific areas you want to work on. You will find with time, that even a few minutes of exercise a day can make a big difference! If you find yourself busy and unable to exercise every day, even two or three times a week is worth it.
Remember, your health is all about balance!