Simple Huge Health Changes – Part 2: Movement 

Walking and hiking are core activities. Walk from your house!

Paleo Lifestyle

Paleo can be hard. Health is an elusive goal; however, movement is a huge foundation for health and the best part is: it’s easy! If you made a punch-list of everything you should do to improve your health, it might make you cry. Start with the top one or two: Move your body to have a profound impact on your health.

Think about our evolution and our paleo ancestors. You think they sat around most days, let alone on furniture? We evolved as movers. We ran, walked, swam, hiked, climbed, threw, punched, grabbed, clawed, and just generally stood upright. Humans didn’t rise up to dominate the rest of the natural world as the apex predator by sitting around on our collective asses, right?

Sitting is the New Smoking

The title says it all. Fear the chair.

In the book Get Up!: Why Your Chair is Killing You and What You Can Do About It, James Levine takes on our sedentary lifestyle. He describes in pretty decent detail how we are literally sitting ourselves to death. Our bodies weren’t meant for this.

Levine speaks in great detail on the things you can do to save yourself. From things like stand-up desks to treadmills that fit under your desk, he’s experimented with just about everything. One of the key takeaways for me was the power of just leaving your desk or couch to have a walk. You can walk around the office or walk around the block on your break. He also even suggests having one-on-one meetings while walking or saving some phone calls for a time when you can take a walk.

Who We Were

A thorough exploration of movement and how it impacts our health.

You might suspect I’m a bit bookish. Well, it is true, I’m addicted to learning new things. Katy Bowman absolutely knocked m socks off with Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement. Katy has made an entire career out of understanding natural human movement and what it means to your health. She makes the case that walking is the first line of defense in improving your health.

Bowman explores everything about the movement of the human body. Importantly, she discusses how important the act of moving is to maintaining healthy DNA and cell activity. This information dovetails so closely with Levine’s work on sitting. She goes into greater depth than most, however, even going so far as to call out the benefits of sleeping on the floor. I can’t begin to discuss all of the cool stuff in this book, but I was intrigued by the homage she pays to the simple act of squatting. No, not the weight-lifting or the defecating types…just the hunkering squat of old where you might draw a map in the dust. Katy is a scholar of human movement and positions. It is a great book!

Paleo Lifestyle

Most folks consider the Paleo lifestyle to be a diet. Wrong! Certainly, diet is critical to the Paleo lifestyle, but movement and activity is also a core component. The Paleo crowd doesn’t always agree on everything; however, they all agree that walking, running, playing, and resistance training are key parts of the equation. If you think about our hunter-gatherer nomadic ancestors, they clearly walked a lot.

The idea of the Paleo crew is to start with a foundation of standing and walking. Add to that some play, think tennis, basketball, wrestling, dancing, tag, Frisbee, skateboarding, skiing, etc. Then find some time, a few minutes per week, to do some sprinting. Underpin all of this with a few sessions of resistance training per week. If it sounds pretty comprehensive, it is. The point is to try to mimic a wide range of movement and stresses on your body without causing injury. Try walking around barefoot where it is safe. Your feet were made to be free!

How About Us?

What does all of this mean to you? Should you join a gym or start training as a runner? Remember, the point of what we are discussing today is to pick something simple that has a big impact. My advice would be to keep it simple at first: start taking outdoor walks. On nice days, an hour-long walk can be very enjoyable. On nasty days, maybe 15 or 20 minutes is all you can tolerate. If it is icy or slippery or otherwise dangerous out, well…don’t go. The point is to put walking at the center of your movement. To that, you need to prioritize those walks.

What about just getting up and stretching while you watch TV? Are there resistance, yoga, or other exercises or stretches you can do while you enjoy the boob tube? Mow the lawn. Shovel the snow on your sidewalk. Rake or thatch the yard. When you are doing your gardening or pulling weeks, could you work on increasing the amount of time you can hunker?

Machines

Our Paleo ancestors did not go to spin class, nor did they have rowing machines; however, many of today’s well-engineered exercise machines can help you on your journey. Just keep in mind that each of them works in a very limited range. If you rely on machines, at home or at the gym, be sure to mix it up and keep up the variety. Obviously, a treadmill can easily help replicate the action of walking.

If you use an aerobic machine (bike, stair climber, elliptical, rowing, treadmill, etc.) on a very regular basis, be sure to train your aerobic base. Don’t get caught up in trying to go all out all of the time; far better to stay moving for an hour at an intensity that allows you to keep your heart rate down. This way, you will move your aerobic threshold and you will be far more likely to come back day after day.

Follow Through

The point here is to find every way you can to keep it easy. Some people enjoy watching TV while using a machine. I happen to love using audiobooks while I’m on a machine. Podcasts are free and you can pick from a ton of cool things to listen to. The movement becomes secondary to your attention when you are listening to something you enjoy. When I’m out in the world, I far prefer to just enjoy what is going on around me. Listen, smell, see…try to find interesting places to go on your walks. You have to make it enjoyable, something that you look forward to rather than dread.

One thing I like to do is head to a local park, take my shoes off, and walk around in the grass barefoot. Now, I realize that this might cause an injury, as some folks think dropping garbage is ok. So far, I’ve been able to use athletic fields rather than city parks with good success. The bonus is my feet roll over the bumps and feel even better after the walk. The downside is sometimes I have to take time later to clean my feet. Oh well, it is worth it. Try it, and you will know what I mean.

All At Once?

You don’t have to go 100-percent all of the time. Just sneaking in 15 minutes of walking is better than not doing it. Standing while you watch a TV show is a simple thing you can do. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good here. You can do something or do nothing. Since movement is a key foundation to your future health, it will be worth it.

You need to make movement important to you. Stretching or yoga can be fun ways to move a little without too much exertion. You get major bonus points for your health if you can find an activity that allows you to play and move. Walking a round of golf is great, but even golfing from a cart is a lot more than most folks are doing most days.

Once you make movement a key focal point in your life, you will look for every way to do it. I used to drive everywhere. Now I look for excuses to walk. I used to try to avoid long hikes while hunting or fishing. Now I seek them out, for the pure joy of the walk itself. The fish or birds are just a bonus, and now my fruitless chukar hunting days take on an entirely different importance and meaning! Part 1: Sleep. Part 3 Coming Soon!