‘I LOST A STONE WITH MY HULA HOOP’ PRITPAL KAUR, 70
In the South Asian community that I come from, it’s not common to be into fitness. This is particularly true for women, who spend a lot of time looking after others, with no expectation to look after their own health.
I was therefore always a bit of an outlier, going to the gym near my west London home to swim or lift weights a couple of times a week. I always tried to get my 10,000 steps a day and also worked two days a week in a shop, which kept me off the sofa.
But when the pandemic started last year, I realised that I was still not where I wanted to be. I weighed 55kg (8.5st), which might not sound like a lot, but on my 4ft 8in frame it made me overweight. I was worried by the news that overweight and unfit people were more at risk of the virus, and decided that I had to get serious about my health.
Gyms were shut, which made things more difficult, and the shop I worked in closed, which meant that I didn’t have those two days a week on my feet. I considered home video workouts, but many of them involve jumping, which often isn’t good for your joints in midlife.
One day I picked up a hula hoop that had been my daughter’s when she was a child, and tried to keep it off the floor. I found it tricky, but was determined to get better, so I practised every day. After a few weeks, I was getting pretty good, and I could feel my core strengthening and my cardio fitness improving. Even better, it was low impact and very friendly on your joints.
Soon I upgraded from a children’s hoop to one designed for fitness that weighs 1.4kg. This was a real step up, and at first the feeling of the weight hitting my core was uncomfortable. Now my muscles have adapted to it, it feels fine.
I worked up to an hour of it every day, keeping the hoop off the floor for all that time. I listen to religious music while doing it, or watch TV. I started to learn hula hoop tricks, too, like swinging it round my arms or neck. By the time that the gyms were open again, I had lost a stone.
I’ve now added swimming and weight training back into my routine, but I have kept the hour of daily hula hooping.
I’m so passionate about the benefits of hula hooping that I’ve started to run workshops to teach other women from my community. I want to show that it’s easy and fun to get into fitness at any age, and whatever your background.