When asked about how she stayed fit in her older years, the late Betty White told People Magazine in 2012, “I have a two-story house and a very bad memory.”
Of course, I laughed when I read that. But I also thought that it implied some great advice. At the time, I worked in my home office 16 steps above the main floor, and I was up and down that staircase all day long. Doing laundry would take me down another flight to the basement. Just by going about my normal routine, I was building leg strength and stamina.
Like many women over 60, I have downsized and now live mostly on just one story. My house doesn’t even have a basement. I do have an open-style “bonus room” up an 18-step staircase, but other than changing the sheets on bunk beds after my grandchildren’s visits, I have little need to go up there. So I’ve tried to hack my life in ways that force me to keep moving and stay flexible. I’m not a medical or fitness professional, but maybe you can borrow some of my layman-level strategies.
Climb Whatever Stairs You Have
If you do have stairs, use them. Instead of keeping a separate pair of slippers in the kitchen so you won’t have to go up to your bedroom if your feet get cold, save the money on the spare pair and walk up that flight of stairs to retrieve your slippers. The same applies to your extra sweater. And during any phone conversation, talk and walk!
If you have no upstairs but you have a basement, or if you have a split-level home, keep an item you use every day down on the lower level. Choose something like a watch – not an essential such as your phone or keys. If you live in an apartment or condo, the longstanding rule applies: take the stairs instead of the elevator as much as you can. I do this in hotels.
Hills are a good substitute for stairs. If you like taking walks, try to choose a route that includes some hilly terrain.
The Grocery Store: Easy Fitness Opportunity
As we’ve been advised forever, park toward the back of parking lots and walk from there. This applies to the grocery store, drugstore, library, bank – wherever you go. If you’re visiting a friend, park down the street. You may have to bundle up in wintertime, but walking briskly keeps you warm!
Where you park is not the only way you can turn your grocery store visit into a workout. Instead of doing a weekly grocery run, try going two or three times a week. You won’t need much, so you can grab a handbasket the store offers and challenge your arms to carry your purchases instead of wheeling them in a cart.
Bring two large cloth bags with long straps, one for each shoulder, and walk out carrying your groceries. This means you’ll be doing some decent weight-bearing exercise as you trek the whole way to your car at the edge of the parking lot.
Arrange Your Kitchen to Challenge Yourself
It makes sense to put the plates and glasses you use most frequently at easy reach, right? Maybe on the lowest shelf of the upper cabinet? In your pantry, you probably place your favorite foods at convenient shoulder height. What if you turned that conventional wisdom on its head?
As we age, we tend to avoid bending down and reaching up, but I’ve found that nothing keeps me mobile more than those two body challenges. Of course, we still have to be careful to bend our knees when we’re lifting something from a bottom cabinet, as well as to proceed slowly to avoid pulling a muscle when we’re stretching to take something down from a high shelf. But within those limitations, you probably can come up with lots of ways to make this idea work for you.
If you eat cereal from the same type of bowl every day, stack those bowls on a high shelf so you’ll have to stand on your toes to reach them. If you drink coffee only in the morning, after you wash your coffeepot don’t keep it on the counter for the rest of the day. Put it away on a big bottom shelf in a cabinet. You’ll have to bend to store it down there, and the next day you’ll bend again to retrieve it. There’s your mini-workout. Or store your coffeepot each day in your basement!
You can carry this approach to your bedroom as well. Assign your most frequently worn clothing to the bottom drawer of your chest or dresser while keeping lesser worn items in more accessible spots. Put your socks in a bottom drawer and your favorite purses on a shelf you must stretch a little bit to reach. It’s counterintuitive!
Don’t Plan Ahead
You don’t often get advice to not plan ahead! What I mean is that you should avoid putting everything you need in front of you. Let’s say you’re getting dressed in the morning and planning to go out and run errands a few hours later. As long as you’re at your closet, the most efficient way to plan your day is to take out the shoes, jacket and purse you’ll need for your excursion and put them by the door.
Yeah, don’t do that. Go about your day until you’re ready to leave, and then go back to your closet. This won’t amount to much in terms of counting your walking steps, but it’s better than nothing.
Back to your coffee – if you drink your first cup before starting the rest of your breakfast, don’t also bring out your yogurt so it’s there when you’re ready to eat it. Instead, get up and go to the refrigerator to get the yogurt. That has you getting up off a chair, walking a little back and forth, and sitting back down. It’s movement.
Socialize with Fitness
My friends know that I’m always going to opt for walking together rather than meeting for lunch. Replacing sitting in a restaurant with an hour-long walk will save you money and give you a chance to enjoy nature if you can go outdoors. And you can wear your sweats!
Bargain Yourself into Fitness
I’ve made a deal with myself: I can listen to audio books only when I run. If you enjoy books, I highly recommend rewarding yourself this way, whether it’s during a run, a walk or a lifting and stretching workout. If you enjoy the book – or maybe some music or a podcast – and you really keep your own deal that the only way you get to listen to it is if you exercise, you may find that it’s an easy decision to opt into fitness.
Television can be another earned reward. Choose a show you really like, and permit yourself to watch it only if you lift weights, do leg raises, stretch – any exercise that’s compatible with watching the screen. Then your strength training takes no extra time, because you were going to watch that show anyway.
Clean Your House or Your Car
Housecleaning is not my favorite way to stay active, but I had to include it since we all know that vacuuming, dusting and mopping a floor gets our heart rate up and uses muscles we might otherwise ignore. Even hosing down your own car, along with cleaning the inside, works to keep you flexible.
Really Play with Grandchildren
You may hear yourself saying: “Grandma is too tired to play tag,” or “Let’s do the puzzle at the table. Grandma’s too old to sit on the floor.” Is that how you want your grandchildren to remember you? We grandmas should stop passing up all the opportunities grandkids give us to maintain our agility.
Of course, be careful. Don’t wear out your back walking a 15-pound crying baby back and forth across the floor. Sit on a rocker. But when toddlers and older kids want to play, look at it as a joyful way to get in some movement.
Multitask
You most likely know about the suggestion to stand on one foot while brushing your teeth. That helps us maintain our balance, and you’ll see how much easier it gets for you if you do it twice a day. Your dental health benefits, too, since now you’re brushing for as long as your dentist probably recommends.
If you’re a passenger in a car, or if you’re driving on cruise control, take advantage of the time to keep one leg at a time raised off the seat to challenge your quad muscles. This is another habit you can get into while watching TV.
You probably can come up with more ideas. Your body doesn’t know the difference between setting aside an hour to exercise or just hacking your life.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
How do you insert exercise into your day? Do you make tasks more difficult so they will challenge your muscles?
