Eating healthfully with whole foods, properly raised and prepared, is very important. However, there’s another side of the coin: it’s also very important to stay healthy through activity and fitness.
Why? First, we are aging and we need to keep up with our homestead’s work load. Second, in the case of an emergency, we need to fend for ourselves, confront challenging situations, and sustain a high level of endurance despite possible injuries.
I and my family don’t require a gym to stay fit. We live in a very remote location with a long walk ahead of us if our truck were to break down. We’ve been snowed in for eight and a half weeks before — one of our biggest struggles was the ten-mile round-trip hike to the mailbox to pay the bills! It was an invigorating and adventurous experience and made me think: the original homesteaders’ greatest skill was in their improvisation, adaptability, and ability to overcome difficult situations.
Every day, at least a few chores provide ample manual labor. And we always enjoy it, whether it’s pulling weeds in the garden, chopping firewood, or hauling a hay bale out to the goats. Anything that keeps us outside in the fresh air gets a thumbs up from me! (Plus, we get to invest our time and love into projects that later we can survey with pride and joy.)
When we hike to the post office, we carry our pack frames on our back. Sometimes they’re empty, but often my son will carry back 25 pounds, and I’ll take 45 pounds. We get an all-body workout, but it isn’t exhausting because our day-to-day life prepares us for challenges like these. We make it our business to prepare for the unexpected.
And what do we do for fun? We strike off into the great unknown wilderness and go hiking. 🙂 This isn’t a casual jaunt — we leave early in the morning and return late in the day, often covering between 20 and 25 miles. We see the most amazing terrain; often it hasn’t been seen by any human eye for a long time.
Exercise and the outdoors are great therapy for anyone. Give it a try. But don’t forget to combine all that healthy activity with eight hours of sleep each night and a healthy diet — you just might feel like a new you, ready for anything! Since I have removed sugar and all processed foods from diet, plus eliminated 90% of the starchy foods in my diet, I have gained energy and lost my aches and pains.
Please know: if you’re in pain or suffering and unable to be active, we are praying for you and certainly don’t urge or expect you to do any of what I described above. 🙂
What’s your favorite form of homestead exercise?
...without giving up the foods you love or spending all day in the kitchen!
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I find myself “working out” less and less due to the fact that we are often doing heavy physical work around our homestead. My husband hauls dirt for a workout. I don’t think we’ve ever attempted a 25mi hike though. Wow. That’s something. 🙂
🙂 Jenny – I have always loved to work out and find it so much for gratifying when it has a purpose beyond just lifting a weight or riding a stationary bike… I LOVE our hikes and never feel exhausted…. Always Exhilarated… I was shoveling horse manure today for the garden for my workout… 🙂 Love it – thanks for sharing and for taking the time to read my post…
Blessings lovely lady… I am truly blessed beyond words…. <3
Great description of functional fitness, Tammy!
Peace to ya!
Love this! I for one am so glad to be out and active with gardening and projects outside. There’s nothing like getting in shape and getting stuff done at the same time!
Tammy, would you pray for me? My husband and I are 52 but in attitude feel a good 20 years younger. Through 3 years of tremendous, uncontrollable stress we have let exercising and eating right go and are finding it MUCH more difficult to get back into shape. I am much worse off than my husband. Will you pray that I/we get back into the program of fighting for our health?thank you!!
Lisa,
You made my day and I am absolutely honored that you asked me to pray for yourself and your husband! You can count on those prayers. I feel that a prayer is the best gift we can give anyone because it comes jam packed with incredible power! I understand your situation – we endured a lot of stress last year to which I got greatly ill, so I too am working on bouncing back and understand the struggle. I will be praying for you both and don’t give up!! You will have days that are hard and you don’t feel well, but push yourself just a bit to even take a mile walk. You will feel SO much better because it is a wonderful way to de-stress. It can be hard to stay disciplined with a healthy diet, but think about why you are doing it and find healthful things (several of them) that you can use to help you when you feel the desire to cheat!! I have found that very useful – I get the salty and sweet tooth kicking in often so I make my own homemade chocolate with almonds, cranberries, apricots and whatever sounds enticing at the time and that is my go to when I feel the need… Drink lots of water also because that will help get everything working well in your system and help remove excess fluids from your body. Most often than not we just don’t drink enough water. Feel free to reach out to me anytime at [email protected]. You can thoroughly count on my prayers!! Also be sure to be good to yourself – even if that means taking 15 minutes to yourself each day and do something that makes you happy and smile. Blessings to you and yours!! Tam
Lisa,
Something else came to mind after I sent the previous response. Get yourselves in a routine of doing some form of physical activity that you enjoy. Make sure it is on your calendar and it is something that you DO NOT allow to be hijacked. If it is something you do outside like walking a mile – have a backup plan if it is raining or take a stroll in the rain.
With being ill from too much stress, I am living intentionally this year and I am guarding my time, my schedule and myself! To some that may sound selfish, but my health is important and so is yours! It is SO awesome to get in that routine because you instantly start feeling better….
Just some additional thoughts from the wilderness… God bless and feel free to keep in touch..
Tam