bythemethod.com blog

This time of year exercising can be extra hard. The mornings and evenings are dark and it’s cold outside. It’s a lot easier to be lazy. This is just the time of year then that we all need a little extra boost in our motivation. I got mine this weekend when I went for a walk in the countryside.

The benefits of countryside walking have been known for a long time. Just today I heard about a report that said people with dogs tend to be fitter and less stressed than those without them. Having a dog forces you to get the exercise that helps make you fitter and lower stress.

But you don’t need a dog to get exercise.

I don’t have a dog and doubt that I ever will. I have nothing against dogs (although I was bitten by a couple of dogs when I was a child) and I’m happy for most people who keep them. But you don’t need a dog to get some exercise.

Because I was out of the habit of exercising and my life at the moment often means I spend most of my time sitting down I needed to get some more regular exercise. This coupled with my own campaign to get my children exercising more led me to set some goals.

I set the simple goal of running every morning and having a longer run (or walk) over the weekend. I only run for about 20 minutes a day (I intend to increase this). The length of the run and how long it takes are secondary to getting into the habit of running.

One of the things I often find frustrating is that most exercise programmes are worked out by those who like to exercise and are fit. If you have never been over weight you have no idea of how hard it can be to exercise. When you are unfit any exercise can make you feel really sick and horrible. I’ve been there myself – a few years back I started running in the mornings and I could only run a couple hundred meters before I was gasping for breath and had to stop. I know others won’t manage this far.

So my first tip is just to build a routine. The more you can make exercise, any exercise, a normal part of your day the more likely you are to increase it and get fit. Build the habit.

Anyway I’ve been running regularly now for a few months and it is starting to have a positive effect on my life. I really do feel better in myself, I have more energy and some of the pain of exercising has gone. My legs are now strong enough that they don’t feel like jelly when I run.

But this weekend I got a real boost.

You see I have always loved hiking. Walking in a wilderness area is wonderful to me. I like the views. I enjoy the clean air. I love the smell of warm heather. I even liked getting rained on.

When I was young I did it a lot. Then I had a long break of several years (looking back this was stupid) and over the last few years I’ve been getting back into it. The problem was that I was not very fit and as I can’t get out hiking very often I had to be content with struggling up the hills. The last month or so I got fed up with this and found lots of excuses for not going walking.

However this weekend I went for a walk. It was a moderate walk for me (about 15 miles) but I’ve struggled over this distance even then. I didn’t expect a lot but it seems my exercise has helped a lot. I was walking with my 12 year old son who has also been exercising with me.

Normally on one of these walks we would take lots of breaks up the hills and often we were so slow that we would run out of time and have to cut the walk short.

This weekend was very different. The first thing we had to do was climb a hill (it was Dartmoor after all) and we did ok. I put this down to still being fit enough as it was the first hill we had to climb. Then we went up the next hill and we found ourselves ahead of our time. Then another hill. Then the longest, steepest climb came up and I suspected by now we would need to go slow and stop a lot. We didn’t. We both steamed up the hill with a minimum of breathlessness.

This might not seem much to you but for me who used to steam up hills all the time (I was famous for it amongst my friends) this was a miracle.

I encourage you to make your own miracles. Get yourself an exercise habit. Don’t give up because winter is coming but instead set yourself some positive goals. You will be amazed at what you can achieve in even a short space of time.