Physical Preparation For TEOTWAWKI
Zombie runs are optional
Have you ever seen a horror, disaster or action movie where a character survives the initial catastrophe but dies due to poor physical stamina?
While it may seem entertaining for the movies and adds to the drama, it’s also a reality for way too many of us. As a nation, the United States is one of the most obese. About 35% of adults over the age of 20 are obese. This doesn’t consider the people who may not be considered obese but are still woefully out of shape.
Regardless of what disaster may occur, being out of shape will make survival tough going, as if it wasnt tough in the first place! While you don’t have to be in optimal physical shape, it’s important that you are in at least decent shape. It doesn’t take a rigorous six day a week, two hours a day fitness program to get into decent shape. It does require you to be more aware of your overall health, diet and fitness though.
We live a sedentary lifestyle. Many people work jobs that only require minimal movement only to spend the rest of our day in a car sitting down and at home sitting down before going to bed and lying down for the night. That’s a lot of sitting especially when we’re not all eating very healthy either. You don’t have to go on a diet, but take some time and pay attention to what you’re eating. Here are some basic nutrition tactics you can implement to begin to improve your health.
1. Eat more fruit and vegetables
I know you hear this all the time but there’s a reason for that. When you eat more fruit and vegetables, you get more good stuff in your body which makes it work more efficiently. You don’t have to change your diet. Just start eating more fruit and vegetables. Try to eat at least two pieces of fruit (not canned, freeze dried or dipped in syrup) and two vegetables (not canned, deep fried or dripping in oil) a day.
2. Only eat until you’re satisfied
Many of us eat way too much food at each meal. When you’re in a disaster situation, you may not be able to eat until you’re stuffed. You may only be able to eat enough to stop your stomach from growling. If you’ve been eating until you can’t move at every meal, you will have a hard time adapting to leaner times. However, if you’ve changed your body so that it is accustomed to receiving enough nutrition to function you won’t have as hard a time adapting if necessary. This doesn’t mean starving yourself. It means focusing on not overeating.
That’s not hard is it? If you start doing these two things, you will be doing a lot to prepare yourself to be fitter. You will also be taking some important steps towards improving your overall health. But nutrition is only one step. Physical fitness is just as important, if not more important depending on the type of disaster and what you need to do to survive it. But like I said before, many of us are woefully out of shape. That’s not just slightly out of shape. That’s wholly out of shape to the point where climbing even a small flight of stairs is either hard or will cause you to be out of breath.
This is just not good enough
While I don’t expect you to be able to scale the side of a building like an action hero, you should at least be able to run for more than two minutes before you have to stop. Physical fitness is key to surviving a disaster. In some disaster situations, good stamina is very valuable. For example, if you find yourself in the middle of an earthquake with the ground moving beneath your feet, the odds of something falling on you are greatly increased. The movies may make you think that in an earthquake the earth may open and swallow you whole. This isn’t typically the case. You’re more likely to end up crushed by something than being swallowed up by the earth. If you are in a situation where things are falling around you and your dexterity is limited, you’ll essentially be a sitting duck. Your ability to duck and dodge debris can go a long way towards ensuring your survival in that situation.
If you want to be able to save yourself (which you may very well have to do), you need to be in good physical shape to do so. But you don’t have to go out and take up a crazy training program to get in shape. If you want to, that’s perfectly fine but you don’t have to. There are a few things you can do start increasing your physical fitness with relative ease.
1. Walk!
Walking is the best form of exercise. Its low impact and everyone can do it. If you start walking 30 minutes a day four to five days a week, you will see an improvement in your physical fitness after a month or so.
2. Pick something and do it consistently
Don’t work out occasionally. Work out consistently. Many people have a form of exercise that they enjoy doing but they don’t do it enough to make a real difference. If you don’t have an hour a day to work out, do it for 20 minutes. But do it for 20 minutes at least five to six days a week. You have to be consistent in whatever you do.
3. Yoga
This is much more than just something practiced by the new age, hippie types. Yoga can really help you improve both your mental and physical health. Not only does it improve your flexibility it also helps increase your strength and endurance. Plus it’s easy to start. Yoga programs are designed everyone from beginners to yoga experts.
Those are just a few of the things you can do to improve your physical fitness. I’m not here as an exercise or nutrition expert. I’m here to help you prepare. If you aren’t in good physical condition, you open yourself up to the possibility that you won’t survive. Being in shape means you can move quickly, effectively and with much more focus than if you’re out of shape. Surviving a disaster may mean pushing yourself in ways you never thought possible. If you’re out of shape you won’t be able to step up the plate. In fact, you will be more likely to become a liability. Don’t become a liability in a situation where everyone should be working hard to assist each other get out of an awful situation.
A disaster situation is unavoidable but being out of shape for it is definitely avoidable.
Category: Physical Preperation, Survival Guides
