The sun was shining in Battersea this morning when I returned from dropping my daughter off at school, so I decided to take advantage of the weather and sit, reading the paper, in my front yard. For the record, this is about one by five metres of weed-ridden concrete, with a couple of ceramic stools and a table.
They have survived purely because they are far too heavy for anything but the most determined old lag to nick. But I digress. Just as I got comfortable, with a mug of silver tip jasmine, I opened the paper to discover that I was becoming part of an alarming British statistic.
A survey of 3,000 people, conducted by Weight Watchers as part of their get active campaign, shows that we spend more than 14 hours a day sitting down. If you add on seven hours sleeping, that’s a frankly pathetic three hours a day actually standing up, let alone moving about.
I thought about my average day…you might remember that we are currently kipping in the office, so the temptation to fall out of bed, and boot the computer on with my big toe, is fairly overwhelming. I start dictating in my dressing gown, while my adorable husband fags me endless cups of poncy tea. I then walk to the bathroom, get ready for work, and drive to work.
I do stand up for the odd ultrasound, but my day is pretty much spent on my bum. I do get a walk at lunchtime, usually to Waitrose to buy supper. I drive home, I work more, I cook, I watch TV. The most exercise I get in a normal day is walking to the pub and back.
I do go to the gym, but not all that often. I venture nervously out on my bike, but not all that often either. So I need to build more activity into each day. I looked at the lazy excuses in the paper, having to work harder because of the recession, too busy with the kids, too tired after work, etc. They all sounded pretty familiar.
I made one of my resolutions, never mind time spent on proper exercise, I need to get out more. But the sun was all too tempting, so I sat reading, and enhancing my wrinkles, until the ceramic stool got too hot for my lycra-clad derriere. Then it was back to the computer to report all day. The only reason I’ll have moved about at all today is because I have a ballroom dance class tonight.
Crap. I don’t want to be yet another statistic. Apparently I should be using the stairs not the lift, parking further away from work, and walking for 30 minutes at lunchtime. Further suggestions for Sedentary Sarah on virtual postcards please…
Surely there’s some ludicrously athletic branch of interventional radiology you can take up…
Outpacing the ‘death threat’ stalker?
The trick is to swap the drive to work to cycling/walking. If exercise doesn’t fit naturally into your day, it’s hard to get motivated. Failing that, how about installing an exercise bike in your office, from which you can gasp your reports into a dictaphone?! Good luck, it’s a tricky one, this.
Absolutely agree with hmh re walking to work. If I had to rely on going to the gym or swimming pool, I’d never get round to it. but you have to go to work, and if it takes 48 minutes (47 on a good day) rather than 15, that’s OK - you just start a bit earlier. Of course, you need to live a suitable distance to work (or park half way there and walk the rest).
I get to work stuffed with endorphins and feeling smugly superior to my carbound colleagues, instead of all riled up from raving at John Humphreys.