Bikini season is right around the corner, and our fancy turns to thoughts of a svelte silhouette. We weigh the benefits of vanity against the pain of deprivation. The moderates (or faint of heart, depending on your viewpoint) swear off bread and wine for a week or two and add in some mild exercise, like walking more. Others take a more violent approach, like my young friend, Shannon Simmons, determined to drop 10 pounds instantly through highly restrictive intake and unceasing exercise. Which one will succeed? Depends on the outcome you’re after.
For long-term, sustainable benefit, emerging research points to moderate, frequent exercise as the winner, according to Steven Blair, at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health.
Surprisingly, it seems that our intake doesn’t matter as much as how frequently we move, Steven Levine of the Mayo Clinic has discovered in his studies of inactivity. When given a diet of 1,000 excess calories per day, some of his subjects gained weight, and others didn’t. Why is that? The non-gainers moved more, unconsciously perhaps, but their bodies just seemed to respond to the excess food by engaging in more, small movements. Start fidgeting, my friends.
Better yet, start walking. Being something of a numbers nerd, I’ve had huge fun with my recently acquired pedometer. I enjoy the challenge of trying to hit my 10,000 steps a day goal. At first I just went about my business and observed the outcome. As I suspected, the days I’m downtown, doing my elliptical workout first thing in the morning, walking back and forth to the train and just moving between appointments, I hit the 10,000 mark without effort. Other days, I’ve got to figure out ways to build it in, but with little planning, it’s getting easier. Try it yourself. Please join me at our Authentic Impact walking group at www.walkertracker.com.
As to the intake part, by all means increase your fruits & veggies, lay off the junk, and moderate your portion size. That’s all to the good. But the real lesson here seems to be let us get off our butts, and our buts. Just move. Don’t sit for extended periods. Simply standing, or even better, walking down the hall, immediately kicks up your metabolic rate, resulting in both better health and a more shapely physique. Couch potatoes take note: maybe televisions should come with a surgeon general’s warning.