Outdoor Summer Activities to Stay Active and Healthy

You know, it's interesting, from the time we started school, we took summer off on vacation. And the reason for that was because when we were an agricultural society, when 90% of the population lived on farms, we had to have all the kids working in the fields during the summer and during the fall and during the crop. And so now we have it in our minds that we work until about June or July, and then the later part of June, July and August are vacations. And then we go back to work after Labor Day on the 1st of September. So people start thinking, well, if this is the summertime, you know the song Some, some, some some somer time and so on, we start thinking, well, what are we going to do in the summertime? Well, the summertime really is a good bridge period because people do mentally slow down, because they've slowed down for 12 or 15 years. But it's the perfect time for you to pick up an outdoor activity and get active. Now, I think the best activities for me are always mental and physical. The mental activities are I read things or I pick a subject and I'll spend the summer reading in a particular subject or perhaps learning a new language. One of the things that I do each summer is I write two books, which sounds crazy, but I write four books a year. And the summertime is a wonderful time for me to sit down with many unbroken hours and just lay out and write the books. So my favorite outdoor activities are always in terms of exercise. They are swimming and walking. And I love to walk. I walk with my wife, I walk with my grown children, I walk by myself. I just love the idea of walking. And walking is one of the very best exercises that you can do. In fact, there was a physical fitness conference a couple of years ago that a friend of mine attended. At this conference they were asking, and these are all physical fitness experts, gym teachers, personal trainers, what's the best exercise of all? And the answer was vertical forward perambulation, which is another expression for walking around. Walking around does more for you and gives you better exercise than anything else. If you were just to come home each evening and and go for a 30 to 60 minute walk around your neighborhood, you'd be one of the fittest and healthiest and happiest people in your society. I like to swim two or three times a week because that works your upper body. Here's an important point that I learned many years ago from an expert that I never forgot. He said the human body is meant to be in movement and every joint is meant to be articulated every single day. So if you get up in the morning and you do your stretching exercises, and for me, I swim and then go for a walk and then ride a bicycle, what you do is you move every joint and every part of your body every single day. Now, the rule is that you need about 200 minutes a week of exercise to maintain perfect health. If you get 200 minutes a week, which is about 30 minutes a day or more if you like, then you'll be one of the healthiest people around. You will lose weight, you will sleep better, you will have more energy, and you will eat less. So 95% of all the energy in performing a new task is the energy required to get started in the first place. So pick one activity like walking or swimming or riding a bicycle and start on it immediately. Even if you only do it for five or 10 minutes. Take the first step and then make it apart for the rest of your life.