Keeping Active at Home for the Lazy Lady/Lad

I am lazy.

When I’m not at work I can be very lazy. I find it easy to sit and watch TV or play on my phone for hours. I don’t feel the need to exercise every day like some people do. I’m not one of the people doing workout videos in my living room or joining in with Joe Wicks PE lessons each morning. I’m not running circuits of my garden.

I’ve got a two bed semi, with a small garden and a (nearly) 8 month old crawling around and getting under my feet, so a living room work out session just would not work for me even if I had the inclination or desire.

During this period of self-isolating and social distancing I’ve figured out a couple of ways of getting off my arse, increasing the steps and movement, the lazy way! And I’m going to share them with you, hoping that if you have any others you could share them with me in the comments.

1. Putting washing away one item at a time. 
   I’ve been doing this for years and it’s a particular favourite of mine. When washing is clean and dry, I take each item upstairs to put it away one item at a time. A pair of socks counts as one item. This increases my number of steps massively, and gets my heart rate up going up and down the stairs with each item. I actually quite enjoy this and feel good afterwards.
2. Bring shopping in from the car one bag/item at a time
   I’ve always done my grocery shopping once a week, and this is even more important at the moment. I may try to reduce it to once every 10 days if I can. When I arrive back home with the groceries I bring one bag in at a time. Many people try to carry 2 or more bags at a time to unload the car as fast as possible. But by bringing one bag in at a time, I’m easily increasing my movement.
3. Haphazard, Illogical Housework
   I hoover the living room, then go upstairs to hoover one of the bedrooms, back downstairs to hoover the porch, then back upstairs for the other bedroom, kitchen, then the stairs and landing. It’s one chore, but by doing it in an illogical order I’m getting way more steps in and getting my heart rate up. You can do this with any chore, whether it be vacuuming, dusting, mopping…
4. TV OFF > Music ON 
   You’ll be surprised how much more moving you do when listening to music instead of watching the telly. The TV demands us to sit and watch so we don’t miss anything, but music doesn’t make those sorts of demands of us. Turn your favourite tunes on and you’ll no doubt start finding yourself jigging/dancing around or at least moving around your home much more.

How are you keeping active the lazy way? Are you currently doing any of the things I’m doing?