How to keep fit in 2017

When I met Ronnie Mawejje at the parking yard of Mandela National Stadium, he was skipping a rope. Beads of sweat carelessly ran down his cheeks. He is one of the more than 50 people from over five groups that gather at the parking yard to work out every morning.
At the parking yard, it is a beehive of activities around these groups. From those who are stretching on the tarmack, to those who are working out going up and down on the stairs.
“I wake up every day at 5am and start jogging by the roadside. After jogging, I do different exercises to stretch my body including rope skipping and I do this every day to keep fit,” Mawejje, who started this routine three years ago, shares. He leaves the place at 8am to go to work. However, jogging is not the only thing that you can do to keep healthy.

Zumba
Next to where Mawejje is skipping a rope from is a separate group of men and women. Each of them has a wooden block during the Zumba session. They dance to fast playing music playing from a speaker, connected to a laptop, powered by a generator. Members in this United Fitness Health Club do different exercises as instructed by Robert Mutebi. They meet here from Monday to Sunday.
For those who cannot afford an annual club membership fee of Shs20,000 or Shs10,000 a month, they are expected to carry Shs2,000 daily to take part in the club activities.

In the office
At his quiet workplace in Ntinda at Minister’s Village, you will see purple dumb bells in Stuart Oramire’s office. His workplace policy allows him to keep around the office compound after 5:30pm to work-out.
“Before I finalise with light weight lifting at work, I first jog for five kilometres at least thrice a week. I do light weightlifting to tone my body and rid myself of excess fats,” Oramire shares.

Tips
Julius Gayira, a fitness specialist at Ridar Hotel in Seeta, says to keep fit throughout the year, the kind of exercises you undertake will depend on the goal. There are people who undertake exercises to lose weight, tone up, attain a certain level of body mass and health.
However, before going to the gym, Gayira says it is advisable to visit your doctor for a pre-exercise screening to advise on what kind of exercise programme you can undertake. It is also important to do warm up exercises between eight to 15 minutes. After the warm up, he says you should follow it up with a dynamic body stretch before going to the gym.
“To keep fit, you should exercise at least thrice a week. Exercises range from running on the treadmill, using the elliptical rower, step climber, elliptical machine and using the spin bike under supervision of an instructor for 90 minutes,” Gayira says, adding that it is advisable to switch between each of these machines within the 90 minutes.

Diet
Aspects to look out for in 2017 as you hit the gym to keep fit, Gayira says should include maintaining proper nutrition for a specific programme as guided by your gym instructor, dealing with emotional balance when stressed and managing time.
Jamiru Mpiima, a nutritionist at Victoria University Hospital says as you look forward to keeping fit in 2017, for those whose goal is to tone their bodies, they should eat protein foods like soya, groundnuts, beans, eggs and animal fats like beef.
“If you are fat and want to keep fit by losing weight, you should eat low carbohydrate foods such as fruits and vegetables like mangoes, pineapples, paw paws and yellow bananas and moderate protein foods,” Mpiima says. He advises people to maintain a balanced diet and caution on skipping meals.

Exercise
Areas of focus
With such workouts, it will be easy to tone the butt, thighs and legs, arms and the tummy.
“No matter how hard you try to go to the gym to tone your body or lose weight to achieve fitness, your mindset and attitude should be ready. Once you start, don’t plan to quit. Live to see that you achieve your goal because fitness is a lifelong thing. Once you start, you are not expected to quit,” Gayira cautions.

[email protected]