Over these four weeks you have taken on the habit of making sure you get in at least 20 minutes of exercise every day. Some of you may have been wondering “if I work out so hard on the other days, what difference do these 20 minutes on my ‘rest days’ matter?”
The primary factor for me, and the reason we included this rule, is that it keeps your mind attuned to fitness as a daily habit. It’s not a 2 or 3 day a week thing. It’s not a fix, it’s a lifestyle. Our bodies will benefit from that intense effort we put in during the workouts we are doing in the gym, but we are meant to move. It is time for people to get in the habit of thinking of themselves as movers and not as sedentary creatures.
As it turns out, even 10 minutes a day may be a bigger deal than just moving. According to this article in USA Today from last year, an informal study done by a team of doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital demonstrated that the effects of 10 minutes of brisk exercise has metabolic effects that last for almost an hour after you are finished. You may scoff, thinking that this must only be good for the vast legions of unhealthy or sedentary people out there. However, they also found that the better shape you are in, the more impressive these effects are.
The doctors studied a few different types of individuals and in a group of 70 people they found that the brief exercise produced several different types of metabolites — some that burned calories and processed fat, some that decreased cellular stress, and others that improved blood sugar. These metabolites hung around for much longer than they expected, up to a full hour, even when that exercise only lasted those brief 10 minutes. The doctors were excited by these initial findings, and plan to study further.
Just think, you can change your destiny in as little as 10 minutes a day. It goes to show, it really is the little things that move you forward. The small efforts, the attention to detail, the seemingly insignificant choices. It may not take as much as you once thought.
Eat right, move, stretch, pick up something heavy every day. Repeat.
We cannot escape that our bodies function only when they are used the way they are designed. We are designed to move. Our systems respond positively to our movement. Movement keeps us healthy, young, and energized. Remember how much fun it was as a kid just to move? I can think of no better reason to do it every day.
