Women's Life Link Be Well, Be Happy, Be YOU!
I thought we’d give the doc a break and call in the fitness guru. Donna Martelli answers a client’s question about staying fit while laid up or when mobility is limited. Even if you don’t have a current injury, you can use the following tips for office fitness as well.
Limited mobility…what can I do?
By Donna Martelli (Holistic Health and Fitness Expert)
Recently, a client of mine sprained her ankle and was told that she had pretty serious damage from the sprain and from earlier injuries to the same area. Her doctor put her on crutches for a month and told her the only way she could go to work was if her boss would let her do everything seated with her foot up. Right before this injury, she had started a weight loss and fitness program. She was totally at wits end as to what to do now that her mobility was severely limited. Here is what I told her:
“Laura (not her real name), there are many things you can do to stay in shape and loose weight. Do you have any free weights? (If not, use 2 gallon milk jugs filled with water.) You can work with them sitting down. Also you can do sit ups in a chair and push ups with your hands on the arms of a chair. You are creative – do anything you can do in a chair! But, most importantly for now – limit your calories to 1700 per day. Try to eat mostly fruits and vegetables with some whole grains and a little chicken or fish. Drink LOTS of water – 8+ glasses a day. By doing just those things, you can loose a significant amount of weight and tone your middle and upper body in a month. Use this as an opportunity!”
Sometimes we need to think in new ways. Circumstances change, but there is always a way to work out and stay in shape at any level. Every time I have had to change my program due to a “problem”, I have learned and developed things that would never have come to be without the perceived “limitation”!
***If you liked this article, read more about office fitness here.
The creativity when encountering problems is the difficult part. You gave Laura great solution, but did she really made it?
It is much more difficult to keep these rules when one mobility is damaged. It’s just boring and eating is sadly a common way to fight boredom.