Staying active while at home
Since the coronavirus outbreak started, people are not going out and gyms have been closed. Being at home every day, with nothing better to do than looking at your phone, watching tv and eating snacks, must have had a toll on the country’s waistlines. One of our friends likes cooking and, based on his wife’s WeChat updates, he has been baking a lot lately. When I asked the wife how they were doing, she told me her husband had gained 5 kg in the last month!
WeChat, the Chinese WhatsApp, has many functions apart from sending messages and making phone calls. One of them is WeRun, a miniprogram included on WeChat that counts your daily steps and makes a ranking at the end of the day out of all your contacts that use it. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it, but Chinese men are extremely competitive. And the most competitive of them all is my husband. So much that he deactivated his WeRun because one of this contacts was a retired old man who walked 40000 steps every day.
Since the outbreak started, the amount of steps people walk has been reduced greatly. But, in mid February, my father in law had the idea of walking inside the apartment. More specifically, upstairs, where we have a big storage room. He goes up there before even having breakfast and spends all day walking in circles. I don’t know if he listens to the radio or something else while walking, because it must be quite boring. The thing is, since he started doing this, he’s been the first on the ranking (at least on my and his ranking, as it depends on the contacts each person has) for many days in a row. His record has been unbroken since February 18. People call him to ask where he is going! C. thinks many of his contacts must be blocking him, to avoid having to see him win every day.
C. and his mum say that my father in law is crazy, but well, it would be worse if he was just sitting on the sofa looking at the phone all day, right?
The first one, with more than 20000 steps. That’s like 15 km, no?
The storage room where he walks.
How’s the coronavirus doing in your countries? Here in Suzhou we haven’t had any new cases since February 18 and Ikea is finally reopening on Sunday, so things are looking good.
I think it’s great he’s being active cooped up indoors! Gym’s close but you can still workout inside your own home without a gym! Maybe you could suggest Pilates to you FIL. Floor pilates can be done all within the size of a yoga mat! https://www.pilatesfoundation.com/pilates/the-history-of-pilates/ He’d be fitter the C!
The only reason why I suggested Pilates is I thought the history of it, Joesph Pilates was in rehab and designed the programme to adapt from his hospital bed. Not quite the story, but it’s a great workout. Not for me as I like more dynamic flow.
I think unless WeChat releases a miniprogram that counts the time you spend doing Pilates and ranks you against your friends, he will continue walking haha!
Pilates will help him walking! Viva WeChat!
Damn, I need to learn from your father in law! That’s dedication! I love that your husband deactivated an app cos he wasn’t ranked first too LOL!
Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
http://charmainenyw.com
In Spain there’s a saying that goes, “participating is more important than winning”. My husband would not agree, hahaha.
Things are about to get…interesting here in the USA. We’re in the mid-Atlantic region (Pennsylvania) and there are “officially” no Covid-19 cases near us; but everyone is starting to realize that just ‘cos the government says there are no cases doesn’t mean it’s true! The staggering inability of the federal government to organize adequate testing supplies is just awful. Stories are starting to circulate about sick people being denied tests because they’re “not sick enough” or “there’s no obvious contagion route.” People I talk with are confused and concerned but as yet there’s no impact on daily life, so no-one is quite sure what to do. Many people I know are concerned that summer holiday plans will get cancelled — and one of my sons has plans to do a number of dance programs in Europe in June-July that may not come about :-(
I’m retired and spouse can always work from home, so that’s one glimmer of good news!
Here’s hoping your quarantine is lifted soon–the news out of China does sound a bit more positive.
It’s sad that foreign governments are doing exactly the same of what China was accused and critiziced for at the beginning. They should have learned their lesson. Yep, if there’s no testing, there’s no cases, ergo you’re virus free! I suspect Japan is doing the same. Lalalaaaa, we have no cases in Japan, the Olympics can go on normally…
Well, three days later and the first two confirmed cases have popped up in our county. I predict panic buying in the shops in 5…4…3… Sigh
It’s just starting to hit us, but the official numbers are low because of course the Trump admin doesn’t want everyone to know how badly they screwed up. So they won’t allow ER doctors to test anyone. But we’ve had multiple fatalities, mostly in older folks.
Meanwhile Trump is holding rallies and insisting it’s a hoax. I hope he gets it next.
Oh, it would be amazing if Trump got it, haha.
Good for your FIL. Keeping active to avoid going stir-crazy. Your storage room looks big enough for your husband and FIL to walk together! We’re here in Buffalo, NY and have not had any official cases yet. It is still the flu season here, so people may just not realize which virus they actually have. The US does not seem to have its act together regarding the COVID-19, but that’s actually not surprising. Hoping your quarantine is lifted soon too. I bet you can’t wait to get back outside and enjoy the surroundings. Stay positive and stay healthy!
Our quarantine is pretty loose now! Yesterday we had lunch outside for the first time since January 23.
The people who are screwed now are the ones returning to China from abroad… they have to wait in the airport for hours before they are cleared or taken to quarantine!
I remember seeing some funny videos of creative Chinese getting their exercise done at home. Meditative walking around the apt is not a bad idea. I’ve been contemplating walking downstairs in the parking garage because it’s shady and windy. But we have stairs, so we take the stairs as often as we can.
Considering how much of a international hub Bangkok is, it’s rather remarkable that we don’t have as many cases as … Italy or the US … or anywhere else besides China. So, it’s very possible that cases are not being reported and/or the hot tropical climate is keeping our cases down as I’ve heard the heat ‘kills’ the virus.
However, we’re repatriating 140,000 illegal Thai workers from S. Korea because S. Korea can’t be responsible for their health, so I would imagine we’ll see a spike soon. But who knows? Gov’ts around the world have been watching how people react to all of this – information is everything. And honestly? Waiting for Netflix to make a movie or series out of it.
Stay healthy, dear. Hope life returns to normal sooner rather than later! xo
There are two movies that went viral in China when the outbreak started. One was the American movie Contagion, the other was the Korean movie The Flu. I’ve seen the Korean one and it looked like the source of many of the fake news, haha. Won’t get into detail to avoid spoiling it.
I think that, with all the Chinese tourists that surely were in Thailand in January before everything started, it’s kind of strange there aren’t more cases there. Maybe hospitals are not testing people with suspicious symptoms.
Thanks, Lani! It looks like we are returning to normal. Yesterday we even ate in a restaurant! (well, more like a food hall… many restaurants are still closed).
The BF watched Netflix’s Pandemic documentary, and I did hear something about Contagion, but I’ve stayed away. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Although, The Eyes of Darkness by Dean Koontz with its Wuhan-400 virus was pretty crazy to find out!
It IS possible that tourists from Jan were too early, but Tland has not stopped or banned flights from anywhere, let alone cities that had hundreds or thousands of cases. Who knows!!!
Take care, Marta! Keep fighting towards the end of the tunnel where there is light :)
This must be the cleanest storage room I’ve seen in my life 👍🏻
Either that, or the picture was strategically taken, hahaha. There’s still more crap up there than what I’m comfortable with.
Oh god, he must be really crazy!! I wouldn’t be able to manage that many steps in just some storage room, I would at least need some great audio books to keep that up for a couple of days.
Even with the coronavirus numbers going up here in Germany nothing has really changed except that some events had been cancelled. Strangely enough football games are still keeping up with full ranks/ visitors/ fans, can’t understand that at all.
Only thing what changed for many people that they actually try to wash their hands and bought out all hand disinfection stuff, thankfully we have our storage still full due to our business…
Hahaha, and I bet face masks are also sold out.
I just read there are over 1000 cases in Germany, had no idea there were so many.
Face masks were gone in the first week of January…appearently some smart people saw an opportunity with the development in China and bought all of Germany empty, on the fifth of January we couldn’t buy anything
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Well done to your FIL – it’s great to hear he is walking but agree with you it would be very boring. I think I would prefer a walker rather than going around in circles. We have had more cases here diagnosed – and I just read Denmark has closed its schools and universities as well as limiting work for government employees.
Meanwhile, Spain is now the second European country with more cases… School has been cancelled in many cities (not sure if everywhere) but it seems there’s still many people in parks, supermarkets and outside in general…
So you’re not allowed to walk around in parks right now?
We live near parks. I have been. Actually our city activated emergency alert last wk. So I’m working from home…employer asked if we could.
However schools not yet shut down.
Oh no, we’ve never been “not allowed” to go out. We could always go out if we wanted, but most people stayed at home. Not sure if the parks that have gates were closed, but others are open and it was possible to walk there if you wanted.
I’m afraid all western countries are doing quite a crappy job. The virus is completely out of control in Europe and US now.
I think our societies are not accustomed to military -like enforcement and screening.
OMG 40,000 STEPS!?!! Does that old retired guy just walk 9 hours a day!?! Even when I walked all over Granada and the Alhambra from 9am to 5pm I didn’t get that many steps!! I’m truly mind blown by that number.
And good job to your father in law!!! He truly has patience and endurance to just… walk in circles. We have a big house and even I go crazy walking around this place to get my steps in. BTW, he looks so young in the photo!
I suspect he uses some kind of cheating device to be the first in the ranking… because I also think 40000 steps is too much.
His phone camera seems to have a built-in beautifying filter, maybe that’s it xD