When I found out I had a high level of bad cholesterol, I immediately went into ‘fix it’ mode. I started going to the gym to ride the exercise bike and I started eating a bit more healthily. I found the finding very shocking since the doctor told me I was underweight! Frankly, I avoid fats and sugars and control my calorie intake. I also spend all day running around doing stuff so I couldn’t understand why my cholesterol was so high.

I began to avoid certain types of foods and tried my best to incorporate others. I started watching one YouTube after another in which various doctors claimed to have discovered the remedy. I can distinctly remember one doctor talking about the ABC of fruit and vegetables that were designed to reduce your bad cholesterol. A is for a red apple, B is for beetroot and C is for carrot. One each a day would lower the LDL. I tried it for a couple of days. I also exercised for about 2 weeks and I avoided the ‘bad’ foods for about a month. Do you see where I’m going with this when I say I did it for 2 weeks or about a month?

Well, it’s not easy finding time to go to a gym and spend at least an hour exercising. It can be hard to find time to go to a gym when you have so many other things to do during the day. Nor is it easy to eat right when you live with other people who don’t always eat the right foods every day. It can also be hard to cook, I would say, ‘special foods’ just for yourself when food is being cooked for everyone including you. In fact, a lot of people with health issues that can be corrected by just eating right have said that it’s harder for them when the family continues to eat as usual. Even when a separate healthy meal is made for them, it’s still tough because everyone around them is eating sugary, fatty foods that, let’s face it, do taste more appetising.

So, in a manner of speaking, my quest wore off, especially given the fact that I ate healthy anyway even when fatty or sugary foods were being served, albeit not too often. I ate but in moderation. I now believe that you don’t have to drastically change your eating habits to get healthy. Most nutritionists say that you can eat most foods as long as you swap out some things in a smarter way.

But can this also be applied to exercise? What if you can’t go to the gym because it’s too far away, it costs too much money in membership fees and you don’t really have 2 to 3 hours to spare 2 or 3 times a week? You might also live in a tiny flat so installing a treadmill or an exercise bike might also be out of the question. What do you do then?

Well, according to experts, all is not lost. In fact, many claim that you can get a fair amount of exercise in by just doing your daily chores. Forty minutes of cleaning burns around 96 calories. Cooking for 45 minutes burns around 50 calories. Standing for around 1 hour and 45 minutes burns around 245 calories. Making the beds for around 20 minutes burns about 25 calories. General cleaning for about 40 minutes can burn around 96 calories. And walking for about an hour and 45 minutes can burn around 184 calories. A lot of this is doable and I am sure that a lot of it is already being done by most of us. We all clean our homes, change the beds, cook a meal, stand around for a fair bit of time and walk around when we’re doing our daily chores. If we add up all the calories we’ve burnt while doing some of the above, even for some of the time stated, we can be assured that we are getting our daily exercise in. The only thing we need to do is to ramp it up somewhat.  It is then that we realise that we don’t need to fret about not being able to go to a gym.

In my view, going to a gym is not sustainable. Eating specially made foods is also not sustainable. The secret, in my view is to eat in moderation and move.