Too Unfit for a Night of Passion!

By Dietitian, Juliette Kellow BSc RD

The results of a new survey show that instead of trying to get fit, us Brits are becoming even more lazy!

The study carried out by Nuffield Health questioned more than 2,000 adults and discovered that over a third (36 percent) said they were too lazy to run for a bus while more than half (59 percent) would opt to take the lift rather than get some exercise by walking up two flights of stairs. A staggering 15 percent said they would rather watch a television programme they didn’t like than get up to change the channel if they couldn’t find the remote control. And almost three quarters (73 percent) said they are too tired for a night of passion.

It’s not just our love life that we’re too lazy for either. A massive 64 percent of parents said they were always too tired to play with their children and more than half (52 percent) of dog owners can’t be bothered to take their pets for a walk. Dr Sarah Dauncey, Medical Director of Nuffield Health says,

“People need to get fit, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of their families, friends and evidently their pets, too. If we don’t start to take control of this problem, a whole generation will become too unfit to perform even the most rudimentary of tasks.”

WLR says . . .

It’s the little changes that eventually add up to make a huge difference to our waistlines so start thinking about how you can be more active in your daily life – and then start doing it. If you currently do little or no exercise, you may find it helpful to keep a diary of how you spend your time each day for a week and then look at ways in which you can build in more exercise.

You’ve probably seen many of these suggestions before, but here’s a quick recap on some of the ways you can be more active, get fit and overcome laziness in your everyday life:

• ban lifts and escalators from your daily life, you can get fit by using the stairs instead
• leave the car behind when you’re only going a short distance, for example, to pop out for a carton of milk or to buy a newspaper
• stop doing your shopping online and instead return to wandering around the supermarket – you’ll save on the delivery charge, too
• remove the batteries from the remote control – and don’t compensate by watching programmes you don’t like
• get the family together and do something active – a walk or cycle in the park, a game of Frisbee or rounders, 10-pin bowling or going for a swim
• don’t circle shopping centre car parks trying to find a parking place right next to the entrance – park further away where there’s plenty of space and walk a few extra metres!
• get fit and get some exercise by going window shopping in your lunch hour
• catch up on tasks like banking in person rather than using online services
• don’t send emails or make phone calls to colleagues who work in the same building as you – simply visit them in person
• don’t leave all your paperwork to pile up on the printer – rather than making just one visit every so often collect individual documents each time you print them off.
• Keep moveable landline phones in their sockets rather than carrying them with you from room to room – that way you will have to move to answer the phone
• Don’t pile things up at the bottom of the stairs – take up individual items immediately.