Dear Fun and Fit:
What in a person’s home may or may not make that person engage in a more fit lifestyle? Do you think that the way someone’s house is laid out, how much furniture they have, how it’s arranged, type of flooring, and whether or not they have a dedicated “exercise room” has anything to do with whether or not they embrace fitness and wellness?
Thanks
Tammy, Oakland Park, FL
Austin Powers, you make me feel randy
Why do I have the image of Austin Powers and his rotating round bed stuck in my head? All that spinning would make me nauseous, not fit! While I contemplate the advantages of a ceiling mirror, let me tell you the one most effective thing you can have in your house when it comes to exercise – did you guess a home gym? If so, you’re wrong. It’s stairs.
Choosing hardwood (or tile/linoleum) over carpet is a good idea too. Sweeping and mopping will burn more kcals than vacuuming, but in our experience you are also more likely to work out or dance on hardwood. (Okay, I just gave away my secret cleaning technique. Yes, I dance with my broom and mop to Led Zeppelin. Doesn’t everyone?)
Robert, call me!
As to furniture layout, pretend you live in a department store and make it next to impossible to go in a straight line from A to B. Have you ever wondered why department stores set up their floor plan so that you need a compass, hiking boots and a passport to get from lingerie to the Chanel counter? Erm, um, well, they actually do that to make you buy more stuff, but making your home into an obstacle course means you’ll move more (including jumping over the couch).
Bouncy, flouncy, pouncy fun house
Regarding exercise rooms – very few people actually use them. Yes, some of the more dedicated people will, but the average consumer will mostly use it for storage and laundry-hanging after a few months. Sometimes having a dedicated fitness space makes people feel even more guilty.
As to embracing fitness, come here and give me a hug!
Read the tiny writing on her sign!
Readers and homebodies: What in your home enhances or diminishes your plans to be healthy? And what music do you play when you clean?
Photo credits:Creative Commons
Leaving the junk food in the store where it belongs. I have store willpower but not home willpower. If it’s here, it calls to me. I try to resist but it always wears me down. Always. It’s more powerful than the call of the Sirens.
Hey Fun & Fit girls!
I HAVE to climb stairs when I enter my house. The garage is on the first floor, kitchen and living room on the second, and bedrooms on the third! When I first moved here, I weighed 180 pounds and my legs throbbed every time I walked up the stairs. Now I’m 135 pounds! Ok, I also joined the gym, which is right across the street from my home, and changed my diet significantly. I no longer huff and puff climbing those stairs (or any stairs) multiple times a day.
Melinda
Well, I am glad for what you said about stairs, ’cause I got stairs! Steep, hard, wooden ones! Three sets altogether. And nothing but plank floors, which require me to sweep and mop with murphy’s oil soap.
Plus, with my numerous DIY projects, it sometimes makes me crazy enough to need to get out a bit, and invariably that means going to nearby H.S. track to run, or state park to hike or trail-run, or the river to row.
So I think I got a whole methodology all worked out here! (Kinda / sorta, anyway…
I am all about the stairs. When I’m working at the computer and just can’t take it any more, I get up and do the stairs for 5 minutes or so. Believe me, you do that about once and hour, and it will definitely make a difference in your fitness and the looks of your calves! Do every other flight 2 at a time and you are really burning calories.
As for music to clean with, nothing compares with Talking Heads, especially Burning Down the House!
I use chairs(usually to move them when I vacuum and the broom does okay cos I sweep fairly regularly too. To me doing housework as well as gardening keeps me fit and healthy. Stairs are great for exercising too but now I’m back home in Oz, I live in a one storey house so don’t get to run up and down them now but I did when I lived in the UK
Patricia Perth Australia
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Stairs certainly inspire activity! At least, if we want to utilize the entire house…
Home gym is a good idea too, and you don’t really need those fancy equipments, just some things that you can regularly use would do fine. and for the stairs, i never use lifts anyway, if it is a 4 to 5 floor worth of stairs, i will take the stairs.
Having a fitness attitude while you do house works helps a lot. That way you can not only achieve fitness, the work also becomes fun. good idea to play music while wiping the floor, though must be careful on a wet floor!
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