Monday, November 10, 2014

Stand Up 2x/Hour


Part four of four daily practices for whole day fitness.

Did I ever tell you, I'm sure I have, about having to do country reports in sixth grade and I only got a Good on my Poland report; there were two higher designations, I forget what, but basically I got a C, I KNOW, I deeply believed that my life was ruined. Because in describing the topography, I only detailed the mountains and rivers and valleys and neglected the very large plain in the middle that I guess is mostly Poland? Idk I still have a pretty unclear concept of Poland, I pretty much blocked it out after that. Which really is the only plausible explanation for why I never ate a paczki until this year.

Anyway the last piece of my whole day fitness puzzle is like that, the very large plain in the middle. Which for me is my work day, my office work. Which I spend mostly sitting, I get into the office at 9:30 AM—a super-sweet deal thanks to the aforementioned forward thinking office manager—and putter around a bit getting my breakfast, and then pretty much sit from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

I've written a bunch of stuff about what sitting does, that info is still pretty good though I've improved my answer about what to do about that. Omghaha remember when I tried those hourly exercise breaks, I demented myself. The very simple thing to do is, just stand up twice an hour. That's it! Literally get up, reset glutes-abs-supes—did I tell you about supes, supes is my new word for rotator cuff muscles, come to one of my classes and you can hear alllll about supes—and sit back down. Anything more than that is gravy, stretch a bit, sure, go for a little walk, lovely, climb a flight of stairs, if you must. I like to keep it as simple and undisruptive as possible to my work. Maybe I'd be healthier if I wrangled cows for a living, but that's not what this service economy has to offer me and these spreadsheets aren't going to wrangle themselves! And anyway, let's not romanticize manual labor. Everything is pluses and minuses, I just need to undo this little minus of mine by unsitting now and again. Do you see what I'm saying? If sitting too much is the problem, the solution doesn't have to be LIFT THREE HUNDRED POUNDS. Though that's a very admirable goal in itself. The simple solution is... don't sit too much. How do you don't sit? Stand up!

The problem with my hourly exercise breaks was a) too complicated, and b) gah, an alarm going off twice an hour. I tried it and it didn't work, no shame in that. I'll tell you what eventually did work to set this habit and when you hear what it is you can join me in a hearty YMMV.

jelly bracelets

Jelly bracelets. I ordered a bunch of them off Amazon, I suppose you could also get them at Hot Topic lol. So I get into work at 9:30 and putter around so I'm up and about, that leaves 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, and 4 times two is fourteen jelly bracelets that go on my left wrist. Whenever I get up, a jelly bracelet goes from my left wrist to my right wrist. So I know if it's 12:15, I should already have four jellies on my right wrist (two for 10, two for 11) and now's as good a time as any to stand up and move another one over.

What if you get behind on jellies? It's jelly bracelets, how seriously are you going to take them? Do jumping jacks, whatever. Or quietly note "faaack" and go back to counting your bracelets, meditation is everywhere, amirite? Make a jelly discard pile and frown at it. You don't have to kill yourself over this, the whole point of this is to unkill yourself. This is a very low impact thing that has a huge impact on your health, and you know what, also your fitness, and also your athleticism. So basically, my favorite kind of thing.

And so it goes until all fourteen are on the right and it's time to get up and go home like Fred Flintstone.

I mean, I get that the significant flaw in this plan is that it has you wearing jelly bracelets. It doesn't have to be jelly bracelets. And it's not forever, I just wore them until I had this down and now I don't wear them anymore. Mostly. I might be wearing them now. Don't you know when you stress out a sixth grader about getting a C on a report, what you get is a forty-seven year old woman who wears jelly bracelets now and again.

Obviously the cost of shipping would exceed the cost of jelly bracelets but if you throw them on another of your Amazon orders, remember you can buy through Amazon Smiles in support of the Windy City Rollers. Use the URL http://smile.amazon.com/ and search for Windy City Rollers. Most purchases are eligible for us to get a cut!