Join us in our 30-day challenge towards getting active!
The goal of this challenge is to improve your stamina and enhance your physical strength.
During the first week of your journey, you will be performing a combination of jumping jacks accompanied by a plank, squats and/or walk. During the second week of the challenge, there will be the addition of knee highs to the sets. In weeks 3 and 4, we will introduce yoga to the challenge.
I advise reading the following:
You will notice that the number of repetition of each exercise is low in the first week and increases as the weeks progress with the highest number of repetitions seen in week 4. It may seem daunting to even start the challenge at first by just looking at those numbers. However, if you follow the challenge accordingly, you will work your way up to the required numbers by week 4.
Let us look at why is it so important to be active. Keeping active is not only beneficial for your physical being but also your emotional being. By being active and moving, we are feeding our bodies with oxygen which is the most vital nutrient for our bodies. It helps with blood circulation, keeps us in shape, decreases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, onset of type 2 diabetes, obesity and so much more. Working out also improves our self-esteem which directly gives us a confidence boost. Emotionally, physical activity releases chemical hormones in our brain which are associated with feeling good. These chemicals reduce our anxiety and depression.
Now let us look briefly at the exercises recommended in our challenge. Jumping jacks, knee highs and squats all increase our heart rate. If your heart rate increases, you are burning more calories than you would during a jog or a run. Most HIITs (high intensity interval training) include these workouts. This challenge is a form of HIIT or fat blasting cardio, where one is performing intense bursts of activity followed by a less-intense activity in one set. Research has been showing more and more that this kind of physical activity burns more calories in 10 minutes than a half hour on the treadmill.
What is better is that you are still burning calories after your workout has finished. The other beauty of HIIT or fat-blasting workouts is that most times you do not need an equipment or a gym membership in order to perform them. Many people use their homes as the center of their workout sessions.
We have all heard of yoga. It has been performed by people in India for thousands of years and has recently gained popularity in the countries in Europe and North America due to the health benefits most yogis enjoy. The benefits of yoga are truly endless. It increases flexibility, maintains or helps reduce weight. It also improves breathing and respiration, since those are one of the main components of performing yoga. It not only feeds the body with vitality but also the brain. Yoga has shown to decrease stress and increase performance. Because it reduces muscle tension, after a yoga session, you cannot help but to feel rejuvenated and calm.
We hope that this 30-day challenge helps you in reaching your activity goals and in helping you maintain a healthy lifestyle which will continue long after the end of the challenge. You may begin a new challenge soon after or you may even want to restart this challenge. By moving and keeping your body active, you are giving yourself the gift of a longer and healthier life. Get out there and get moving, let us know which activities got you moving.
TheDiabetesCouncil Article | Reviewed by Dr. Christine Traxler MD on June 01, 2020
