How to keep fit for FREE as a Student
Student life is full of opportunities to binge both eating and drinking, and leaving a lovely reminder on your hips and bellies. Fast food is cheap and easy. Plus a 4 am kebab or pizza is hard to say no to when those hunger pangs occur and waking your housemates with cooking and the inevitable dropping of a pan is not a great way to keep them happy. So the options are to eat less bad food, easier said than done, those donuts for charity are good, and it is for charity. Eat more salads? Well if you do be careful of some, they can contain more calories than a burger. Right to the gym it is. But you have already spent all your money, that exotic trip might have been fun, but now your wallet and purse is starving. Some gyms do really cheap memberships and likely your university has a deal with one or two places, but students are all about FREE stuff and we at Pads For Students agree so here is our guide to keeping fit for FREE as a student.
Walking
Walking is super simple, put one leg in front of the other then repeat. It is amazing how many calories you can burn by walking to your university campus. You may have a free bus or a bus pass, but put it to one side or save it for late nights, when staying safe is far more important. So get those legs walking and fat burning, even if it is a twenty minute walk to your lectures it is forty minute round trip. Remember to wrap up warm and dry if the weather isn’t great, it is the UK after all. But nothing gets the blood flowing like a walk in the morning and it will get you all ready for a hard day of studying. If you own a bicycle use it instead of your legs if you want, but remember to follow the Highway Code and be highly visible.
Stairs
In a similar vain to walking, as it is a subset of walking, using the basic one foot forward then the other, but now with the addition of going up or down. Students can wait ages for lifts, for what? Well a lift, but to save them energy and they are lazy, but using energy is good, it means that burger you had last night isn’t weighing on your gut. So cancel your order for a stair lift and get those legs pumping. Private halls are great for stairs, floors and floors of them.
Weights
The first thing you are thinking is; I don’t have any weights and that you said this was free. In essence you are right, but you do have something heavy, something every student has and can just collect dust just like weights, textbooks. It is amazing how heavy those textbooks can be, so pick them up and start pumping iron, I mean paper. Put some in a bag and increase how much you can lift. Want to tone those legs then use your bagged books on them too. You will look like Arnie in no time; if that is the look you are going for.
Games
We don’t mean Monopoly or Risk, get outdoors, play some sports, Frisbee or even children’s games such as tag or hide and seek. Children’s games have been shown to be very similar to interval training used by athletes. If you like a sport see if there is a club or a free team you can join; even if you haven’t done it in a while they will surely give you a hand and help you get back into the sport. If you fancy a game to get you more limber, try Twister that will get you flexible in no time.
Stretch
You should have a good stretch before you do any strenuous activity, but then you can do some serious stretches and train for the Olympics, so find a more descriptive guide of great stretches and get more limber.
Skipping
Skipping might seem very girlie and childish but it is very good for you, plus all you need is a rope. Did you know during fifteen minutes of intense skipping you can burn 200 calories, start slowly and build up, combining skipping and marching on the spot and you will shed the weight easily. To make sure you don’t slack when skipping, maybe set it on fire, but don’t do it indoors, landlords don’t like that and will break your tenancy agreement.
Don’t forget a highly valuable resource on keeping fit, YouTube. Millions and millions of videos will help you find the training regime that suits you. As well as Google to find even more health tips. For more information for students both about student life and finding student accommodation then check out the rest of our blog section of Pads For Students. Make sure you have some awesome accommodation for your studies so that you can get the best of your time at University. Also get some awesome housemates who can help you get fit then check out our housemate section and make some great new friends.
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