After explaining the benefits of incidental exercise to Lisa, a personal training client of mine I was feeling pretty happy with myself I have to admit. I had just helped her understand the benefits of how moving your body more throughout the day would help her along the path of achieving her weight loss and fitness goals.
She was happy; she bounced her big blond pony tail around her head as she excitedly informed me that she was going to put her new found knowledge into action this weekend. With a spring in her step and a smile on her dial she skipped out of the gym in a swirl of Chanel No 5 with a hint of sweat and a sea of admiring glances from all the men caught up in her aroma.
The satisfaction one gets from sharing their knowledge and helping someone else is very rewarding and the smile was still on my smug little face on Monday morning as I prepared to meet Lisa for another training session.
She came into the gym with her usual enthusiasm and proceeded to inform me how happy I would be with her because she had completed her homework and achieved 20 minutes ‘ACCIDENTAL EXERCISE’.
“I’m sorry Lisa, don’t you mean Incidental exercise”, I giggled thinking she had mucked up her words.
“No, you said that I need to be doing more accidental exercise so I was in the city on Saturday and my mum and I accidentally got off the bus at the wrong stop, instead of getting back on we took your advice and walked the rest of the way”.
They say that the measure of communication is the response you get so I quickly resolved to work on my delivery and maybe be a little more humble about my work.
Anyway Lisa got the general idea about Incidental exercise and so I thought I would share a few reasons as to why, whether it is incidental or accidental, it is still good for you.

Over the past 50 years our ever increasingly sedentary lifestyle has caused an ever increasing waistline. Our desire to make thing simpler, easier and faster has helped contribute to us becoming one of the fattest nations in the world.
Incidental exercise is the exercise we get doing daily activities and can make a big difference to maintaining a healthy weight. Things like:

• Instead of take the lift or escalator we can walk up or down the stairs
• We can get off the bus one stop early and walk a little further to work
• We can get up and go talk to someone in the office instead of emailing them all the time.
• We can leave the remote control on top of the TV and get up every time we want to change channels
• We can park our car a little further away in the shopping centre car park from the entrance to the shops we are visiting
All these types of activities help to boost our daily calorie expenditure and keep our metabolism fired up through the day, thus leading to a happier, healthier you.