I still have to undo all of the damage from the 1980’s as a personal trainer. Do you remember the 1980’s? I was just a kid then, but I remember them just fine. This is when people started getting really obsessed with jogging, lifting heavy weights at the gym, and just generally trying to go for the most extreme types of exercise that anyone could ever do with themselves, and that’s ridiculous. You really don’t need to choose exercise that is so punishing and torturous that you can never motivate yourself to do it on a regular basis.

Ever since the 2000’s, we personal trainers have been telling people that they really just have to walk more, and they’ll get healthier. I don’t know why people don’t believe us. I have clients who are worried about a bad family history of heart problems. They refuse to believe me when I say that they’ll drastically reduce their risk of heart problems as long as they just walk for thirty minutes a day. It’s like they think that they need to engage in strenuous exercise in order to expel all of the heart demons from their bodies.

Other people get excited about how they really don’t need to jog around the block every day in order to get healthy. You really don’t, and I actually don’t recommend running for people unless they really like to run. Running is really bad for your joints. I think that a lot of people like to work out in the first place because they seem to be under the impression that being healthy is all about how fast you can run. It really isn’t.

Get yourself moving in ways that you actually enjoy. Going for the occasional run is not going to help you live a long time. Getting yourself moving every day is going to do that. It’s been said that sitting around all day long is what is really making a lot of people sick, and you don’t have to punctuate your epic periods of sitting around all day with bouts of sweating at the gym or long jogs. Just get yourself on your feet and moving around, and you’re going to be just fine.