May 15, 2021
by Kimberly Deaño
Fitness…What does fitness mean? Is it about exercise? Doing heavy workouts in gyms? About having those summer hot bodies? Those diets? What does fitness really mean? Why does fitness important? How does it affect us?
As one would define, fitness is about being physically active and have a fit physical shape with proper dietary nutrition. On sharecare.com, an answer from the National Academy of Sports Medicine –
“Fitness is the condition of being physically fit and healthy and involves attributes that include, but are not limited to mental acuity, cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, body composition, and flexibility. While there is a standard definition for fitness, each individual can have their own personal understanding of what fitness means. To some individuals, being fit means the ability to complete a marathon or lift a lot of weight. To another, it could mean walking around the block without becoming short of breath. Your definition of fitness will be influenced by your interests, physical abilities, and goals. No matter what the definition, it is important for every individual to keep their personal definition of fitness within a healthy framework. This means you should have realistic expectations and maintain balance and moderation in all aspects of life. Set small, attainable goals and avoid giving too much power to the numerical measurements of fitness. This can help your journey to fitness seem much less daunting and much more enjoyable.”
In summary, fitness’s definition depends on person to person. Since the COVID-19 spread and became pandemic, our daily lives have become compromised by staying at home, using masks and face shields as protection when going out, social distancing, etc. Various establishments have closed such as schools, malls, small businesses, etc. However, while staying at home during these difficult times, how do our students maintain their fitness?
Here are a few fitness ideas from AISAT students:
- Exercise
Despite the ongoing widespread of COVID-19, anxiety arises from people’s mind especially the students, and staying at home for several months with limited access on the outside world makes it boring. Exercising is just one of the few ideas of students to stay sane in these difficult times while keeping their physical bodies fit and gain immunity. Doing household chores is also a type of exercise as making their body stay active such as sweeping the floor, carrying buckets of water for their basin, cleaning their house, or even washing their dishes.
- Balanced diet
True enough that staying at home makes us bored and want to eat various types of food, especially junk foods. However, to stay fit and healthy, students promote having a balanced diet or eating healthy meals as such eating fruits, vegetables, and meat. Keep the portion of each meal balanced in go, grow, glow foods.
- Drink water
There are many types of drinks out in the grocery stores like juices, sports drinks, liquors, etc. Each one of us has our own lifestyle and different perspective on keeping fit. Extensively processed beverages are in the market that always offers us various tastes that we end up loving and difficult to resist. With many beverages sold out there, we always end up with the basic yet most important part of our lives in keeping our body hydrated – water. Drinking lots of water does not only quench our thirst but also helps flush toxins in our bodies. 8-10 glasses of water a day is always the standard recommendation by experts, however, the amount of water that we consume will also depend on our situation and condition, but, one thing is for sure, by drinking the right amount of water it helps us keep hydrated, replenish the oxygen in our body, boosts our skin to be healthy, flushes toxins, and also helps weight loss.
- Walking
Being in the new normal, classes are taken online that making individuals, not just employees but also the students always seated and do their tasks given online. If possible, take a break and stretch those legs and arms, and let your eyes relax from staring too much at computers, cellphones, and other gadgets. Simple stretches can help the muscles on our body relax but also keep them active. A little walk around the house would also be advised. It will not only loosen up our body but also helps our brain to rest and de-stress with that homework and requirements held out. You can also walk with nature, especially those in secluded areas where there are limited people and a pleasing eye-catching environment.
- Biking
As the new normal transpires, social distancing is one of the protocols that everybody must follow. Contact with other people should be avoided and should have at least a 1-meter distance from each other, particularly when talking. In keeping our bodies fit, students suggest biking. Biking is not just a form of no-contact exercise but also a form of hobby. Many students are engaged with biking as their means to exercise, perspire, and keep the body fit and lose weight. Sweating is one way to remove toxins in our body and it also helps our mental health with keeping the social distancing policy.
The above are just simple and few ideas from our students to keep healthy and fit at the same time. What about you? What are your fitness ideas? You can always share it with your family, friends, or loved ones to be fit together under our new normal situation. Keep healthy and active. Always pray and be hopeful that our situation right now will improve and sooner this pandemic that we suffer in will be over and be just in the deepest of our memories.