Don’t watch paint dry – use the tins in your fitness regime
The battle for your sanity has begun as cabin fever starts to take hold.
Maintaining both your mind and fitness is a daily struggle given the lockdown in place across the country.
The trick is to think outside the box and be a bit inventive.
It’s the Livingston way – you do the best you can on a restricted budget.
It’s about using the things that you have around you rather than just sitting about feeling helpless, at a loss and devoid of motivation.
If you don’t keep your brain ticking over then you’ll be in danger of going stir crazy.
We are not prisoners to our fate – there are plenty of ways to keep mentally and physically active in the weeks or, heaven forbid, months ahead.
Be motivated, be inventive and be imaginative.
If you have a garden then get into it and use whatever is around to build your fitness. When you don’t have a state-of-the-art gym at your disposal, two tins of old paint are just the job for a bit of weight training.
Tie a few tins of beans to your ankles, there’s loads of things you can do with the things you have at hand.
If you have kids in the house then get them involved and come up with ideas that inspire them to stay healthy.
I hear people moaning about being stuck in the house.
They complain that they are unable to do this or that – but it’s a negative attitude.
The situation is what it is and we need to embrace it.
It’s a strict regime in the Holt household.
I write down a list of things to do each day but I also don’t worry if I don’t get them done. Just see what you can do and at least that has set some goals.
Part of that involves home schooling my 10-year-old son Zak.
Do I worry that we don’t get through everything we have written down?
No, but at least we set ourselves targets.
Here’s a wee trick that has worked well during the last few weeks.
We give our kids some money each day and there’s a tuck shop in the kitchen where we have put snacks like chocolate, sweets, drinks and crisps.
Rather than just allowing the boys to come and go as they please with a junk food freefor-all, they now need to budget and spend their money sensibly rather than just helping themselves from the cupboard.
It allows them to see the value of money and that £1.50 a day will only go so far.
We try to make things fun and
I’m conscious of trying not to put him under any pressure to complete all of the tasks.
It’s the same with the adults, we need to try to engage ourselves with things of interest rather than focusing on what you aren’t able to do during these days of social isolation.
I’ve downloaded an App from my phone with is called, ‘Couch to 5K’.
Every day Zak and myself have been using our one daily fitness run to try to hit that target – and we are almost there already.
Don’t forget, social isolation doesn’t need to be solitary confinement. If you are bored, get busy.