Adequate health is the basis of a productive lifestyle. As such, it’s important to maintain good physical health — especially during quarantine. Achieving your desired health requires a good diet and a little exercise every day. Staying physically healthy can be fun and easy.

There are so many exercise options that you can participate in whether it be alone, with a friend, or even with a group. Whichever method works best for you may have a significant impact on your motivation.

“I have teamed up with a friend of mine who is just also looking to get back in shape and so we try to meet up a couple of times every week and we will do workout videos together outside, we’ll just set up a laptop outside so we can stay apart but then still watching the same video,” Physical education teacher, Kristin Tomkinson said.

Doing a workout video alone or with a friend is a super healthy and fun activity to do in order to get in shape. However, many struggles with motivation to do these activities.

“You’re not alone [if you’re trying to find motivation] I think we’re all very much being challenged every day, every afternoon, every evening, every weekend with the motivation to get up and go,” physical education teacher, Andy Tomkinson said. “Not everything works for everyone, so there might be another way you can motivate yourself; if that’s through positivity, negativity, getting a coach, making it a job, making a game out of it, finding something new to do, trying out something new that maybe you haven’t done like getting a punching bag or something like that. This is the greatest time we’ll have to explore new ideas.”

It’s hard to stay motivated and want to get out there more, especially during these times of lockdowns and quarantines, but we can try our best and know that it only benefits us. Getting outside of the house is a great way to sustain strength, but many people get uncomfortable working out in public and that’s normal there are many alternatives.

“My mom used to not let me go outside to run and workout at a park or something because she was scared it wasn’t safe for me, she lets me do it now but before when I couldn’t I had to work out inside and at the gym with her and I didn’t like being stuck inside when the weather was as good as it was so I just went in my backyard and made up my own workout or watched a workout video,” Freshman Arianna Cabrera said.

There are many ways to stay active during quarantine, both indoors and outdoors. We are lucky enough to live near many different environments we can go to be active.

“I am way drawn to the beach, so calming, soothing, natural, sounds good, smells good and there’s a lot of open space around which is nice, the clean air coming off the ocean’s also nice,” Tomkinson said. “There’s also some great hiking trails very close by in the north county area”

Staying healthy isn’t just about working out and staying active, it also helps to have a healthy diet.

“When I was about 12 or 13, I was starting to get more acne and so I started looking up stuff to make my skin clearer and…I came to find out that the best remedy for my skin was to have a healthy diet and [drinking] more water and that’s exactly what I did,” Cabrera said, “I noticed a huge difference in not only my skin but my energy and my focus and it all and all just made me the best version of myself, it’s crazy because I never would’ve thought it would be as easy as drinking about eight cups a day.”