To my amazing clients,
The Holiday season is upon us in full force. And I've been asked often about fitness gifts and gadgets. Brian, is it worth it? Do they work? The most popular item out there these days is the exercise band that measures steps, calories burned and some measure heart rate and sleep. From my research and in my opinion a gadget like this can be very beneficial and worth it. I've heard the fit bit charge is pretty good. Before you run to the store our smartphones can basically do the same thing.
Sadly to say our every day lives have become very sedentary for the majority of the Americana population, We get up from our bed to our car seat to our office chair to our couch and then we repeat that at least 5 days out of the week. BRIAN, don't forget I go to the gym 5 days a week!! Remember, our lesson from last week. 5 hours of intentional exercise is awesome but in the big picture IT is not enough for body composition change. Everything we do comes into play.
Our sedentary lifestyle is killing us. In 1958 less then 2 million Americans had diabetes. Now 26 million Americans have it and 80-million have pre-diabetes. 1in 3 Americans have high blood pressure. Just diabetes and heart disease cost the U.S. healthcare system 268 billion dollars annually. That doesn't include back pain, depression and cancer which can also be linked to not being active.
Brian, What in the blue blazes does this have to do with Christmas gifts??? Well, I'm getting to that. So one thing the fit bits do a good job of is measuring how much we move daily. Our daily steps. Calories in vs. calories out is the bottom line. We burn calories by our BMR basic metabolic rate, TEF themal affect of food and NEAT in our daily lives. Now we raise our BMR which is up to 75 percent of the calories we burn just by being alive beings and make it a powerful calorie burning machine by having more lean body mass. MUSCLE!! That's what you and I are accomplishing in the gym when we meet. Having a more efficient and higher metabolism is very important and why getting intentional exercise is vital to our success. By the way only 15 percent of Americans go to the gym. You should pat yourself on the back. Proud of all of you.
Now NEAT in my opinion besides nutrition is the most important factor in losing body fat. NEAT is non exercise activity thermogenesis. It is measured through what we do daily. At work, around the house, leisurely activities so on so forth. Foot tapping can be considered neat.
The fit bit or our smart phones can measure how much we move. I think 10,000 steps is the prominent number. Its not a magical number its just a goal. The more we move the better off we are. I've know clients stop watching T.V. to take a walk because they only had 7,000 steps for the day. To me that says its doing its job and well worth the purchase. Now it is challenging when working behind a computer all day but I believe its possible. We've heard for years park farther away, take the stairs, talk face to face with a co worker instead of sending an email. Pace while on the phone instead of sitting on our rear. Technology is catching up with standing work stations. I've heard of some using a stability ball as a chair. We need to combat our sedentary lifestyles with finding little ways to move more. Walk to the convenience store. Shut the T.V. off and play twister with the wife. Measuring the steps we take and the calories we burn help keep us mindful of combating being sedentary in our every day life. In conclusion if the gift helps you or those you love, move more and be active it is totally worth it. That's all I got for today. REMEMBER BE CREATIVE BE ACTIVE AND BE HEALTHY!! Contact me if you need anything. Love you all. Brian
My statistics were from M.D. P.H.D JAMES A. LEVINE his book GET UP!
No comments:
Post a Comment