A great way to increase the total physical activity in your day is to add challenges to your usual daily activities. This is referred to as “incidental exercise” and the key is to replace a few ‘convenient’ activities each day with something that will cause you to move more.
Moving your body more around the house or at your work uses calories, not a lot but it can enough to make a difference. The cumulative effect of incidental exercise means you can be regularly burning body fuel.
Here are some examples of easy ways to boost your daily incidental exercise levels by simply changing the way you do everyday things. You will be surprised how all these little extras can add up at the end of the week. Even when you are shopping, and going about everyday activities, try to look for the more active option. Try these Tips to increase your daily incidental exercise out and about.
- Park further away from the entrance at the shopping centre.
- Use the stairs instead of escalators or lifts. If there aren’t any stairs near by walk up the escalator.
- Get off the bus one stop early.
- In the supermarket walk up and down all the aisles. Even if you don’t need to buy food in that aisle, you may even find some new, healthy foods to add to your shopping list!
- So often meeting up with friends is focused on food. If a friend visits you instead of coffee and biscuits, why not go for a walk at the local park or around the block to catch up on the latest gossip.
- Make your leisure activities more active, e.g. if you play golf, walk the course instead of driving a buggy.
