Be active

Get Moving… Be active

A little diversion from my usual posts, but a slight mention of Cannabis can’t be avoided.  For many it helps to build an active life.  I’m speaking about putting one foot in front of the other.  Walking.  Left foot, right foot, repeat.  Many health professionals across the nation will recommend a walk often, well at least will not recommend sitting behind a desk for hours even writing a blog post.  The word for that is ‘a sedentary lifestyle‘ and it’s not recommended.  Well if your doctor does recommend a sedentary lifestyle, find a new doctor!  Get Active!

Benefits of an active life

The health benefits of an active life are numerous and diverse.  The community you live in benefits when it’s residents and visitors can get out and about, people are usually more productive after they walk.  It benefits with reduced health care costs for many problems.  Less wear and tear on roads often leads to reduced infrastructure costs.  Who’da thought wearing out shoe leather with an active life would save your community money?  The facts about productivity prompts your employer to encourage you to step outside and take a walk.  Your personal wellness is improved with a regular walk.  A walk in nature impacts mental health positively, more so than a walk on a city block but both are good for all your ails.

Ignore the car, walk not to far

Perhaps not to the Bar…  The distance you walk is not all that important a destination could be an incentive.  An active lifestyle leads a healthy life.  Perhaps your property manager, your job or your household makes you consume ‘smokables’ like Cannabis or Tobacco outside.  That’s a short walk, ability to live in a residence is a great incentive imho.  An apartment and business might have a smoking area away from a building.  A house often sits on a block and a ‘Participaction‘ focus I saw years ago recommended a simple ‘walk around the block’.  I call it stinking up my neighborhood no one seems to mind my smoke as long as it’s out there!  A fun activity is counting your steps.  Count my steps?  What’s that?

Healthy apps

One way to keep any fitness goal you have is to count how many steps you take per day.  You could have a wearable device, like the famous “fitbit“.  A wearable device imho is better than an app on your phone as it stays with you during all the steps of your active life, can also accurately chart your sleep.  Some can count calories as well as other healthy activities.  I use a trio of apps on my phone.  Your phone may have one preinstalled, I’ve got a Samsung and Samsung Health includes a basic Pedometer among other functions.  Google has one called “Google Fit” which yea, does the same and more.   Carrot is one I’ve used for over a decade, actually it went dormant for a while and changed some features to become better. Download and use the recently upgraded app formerly called  ‘Carrot Rewards‘ today available from the App and Play Store!  If you do that, it’s best to sync all your activity apps together with an app like ‘Health Sync‘.  Health Sync is not exactly free though, but a nominal one time fee of $3.79cdn can be paid or a recurring 0.99 charge every 6 months will let you use it forever.