When I started getting healthy again, I started looking at every aspect of my life to see if I need to make any changes. The two main levers I settled on were decreasing caloric intake (diet) or increasing caloric use (exercise).
Like more and more of corporate America, I work on a computer and don’t move that far from my desk on a daily basis. But I couldn’t quantify how sedentary my current job might be, so I bought a pedometer, which measures the amount of steps you take. I figured that walking and/or number of steps that I take, should give me some idea and a data point on how sedentary my daily life might be.
I wore the pedometer for two weeks, the results were eye opening.
I was taking approx 2500 or 1/4, of the recommended 10,000 steps a day. A number of health organizations recommend at least an hour of activity each day, which works out to about 10,000 steps.
A normal occasional 20 min walk with the dogs: 2500 steps. So basically, a short 20 min walk with my dogs was more movement than I was getting all day at work. Damn, no wonder I gained all that weight, I was barely moving at all.
But I’m not alone, according to a 1997 CDC study, 40% of Americans lead completely sedentary lifestyles meaning they NEVER engage activity during their leisure hours and little, if any, at work. It also doesn’t help that we’ve built most of our cities around cars and that work is typically typing on a keyboard.
So, here is some advice:
- Take the stairs instead of the elevator
- Park in a parking space farther away from the entrance
- If you use public transportation get off a stop earlier & walk the rest.
- If you don’t have time for an exercise, go for a walk on your lunch hour.