To recap: It crept up on me slowly; a kilo here, a few hundred grams there. Three years after moving to Martinborough from Petone, I was 10 kilograms heavier. What happened? The commute happened. I was time poor anyway before moving, but driving over the hill four days a week meant I suddenly lost three hours from my day – or four on a bad day.
Mish McCormack knows all about the struggles time-poor commuters face:
Mish and her husband Grieg Rightford are partners in Healthfit Wellington and Martinborough and also own a Healthfit gym in Greytown’s Five Rivers center. So Mish is regularly racing from one appointment to the next to see her clients, who are dispersed between all three gyms.
Many of her clientele are regular commuters so I asked Mish for her top tips for proiritising fitness on a busy day.
Q: I find sleep is a problem; because I get home later, I go to bed later and then I’m up earlier. And I also do all the things we know we shouldn’t do, like read my ipad before bed. What problems can too little sleep cause and what are some ways to get better sleep.
A: The million dollar question and one that so many of my own clients struggle with. Sleep deficiency is linked to many chronic health problems such as high BP, heart disease, stroke, obesity, kidney disease, depression and much more. Lack of sleep can also impair performance, alertness, judgment, memory and of course motivation. This is a problem often for commuters who are up extra early to travel and then home again late at night.
Make sure once home you have a set routine around bedtime, try to not eat within 3 hours of going to bed (avoid heavy meals at night and too much caffeine during the day as this may affect sleep at night _ as does sugar intake), limit blue light and stay off screens for at least an hour before bed as all this will do is stimulate you more and keep you awake.
If you are hungry and must eat, try a handful of pistachio nuts as they are high in melatonin. Try some deep breathing/meditation or even box breathing 4,4,4 (breathe in for 4, hold for 4 and exhale for 4) in through nose + out through mouth, gentle stretching, take a warm shower (help relax muscles) keep your room dark and cool (black out curtains are amazing)
At the end of the day do what works for you, having a ritual is a great idea and one I try to get my own clients to do. It could be as simple as a warm shower or bath, brushing teeth, listening to some music or meditating, getting the room at the right temperature , always having a clean pillow case and then nah night!
Q: Finally, you have a lot of clients, including some super fit ones. What’s their secret to commuting and staying on track?
A: Make the time and stick to it . Book your exercise into your diary like you would any other meeting and STICK TO IT!
The moment you get busy or someone books over YOUR time that opportunity is gone forever and remember folks “Health is Wealth”, without it you have nothing , so get that diary out book in your time, see where you can fit your exercise even if it’s for a short amount of time “do it”. You wont regret it and you will feel so much better for it, that I can promise you!
The latest science studies support the need for regular exercise: the guideline is for 150 minutes a week.
Some 90,000 healthy middle-aged people wore wrist bands to track their activity levels for a week.
Results? In the six years after the monitoring project, people who did moderate-to-vigorous activity had less stroke, heart attack, heart failure and atrial fibrillation (irregular rhythm) compared with sedentary people.
The NOVEL finding of the study: there was no difference in outcomes for people who did more than half their activity at the weekend compared with those who spread it across the week.
So moderate-to-vigorous activity, regardless of when it’s done, is associated with improved heart health. But the real benefits only come if you break a sweat: the more exercise the greater the health benefits.
Two and a half hours of weekend vacuuming or strolling is not enough to stave off heart disease, or lose weight.
Researchers found active groups in the sample showed similarly lower risk of heart attack (a 27% reduction for “weekend exercise warriors” and 35% for regularly active people, compared with inactive participants).
Weekend warriors had a 38% lower risk of heart failure than inactive people, while regular exercisers had a 36% lower risk.
Irregular heartbeat risk was 22% lower for weekend warriors and 19% lower for regularly actively people. Stroke was 21% and 17% lower for weekend warriors and regular exercisers, respectively.
Acknowledgement: Good news for weekend warriors: people who do much of their exercise on a couple of days still get heart benefits The Conversation July 21, 2023
