What Your Step Count Says About You

As part of our corporate wellness program, H3 @ Work, H3 staff has the opportunity to earn points for completing certain healthy activities, one of which is counting your steps throughout the day. In an attempt to gain more points through the program, I decided to strap on my pedometer and get to counting. Since I’m in marketing, I tend to spend most of my workday behind the computer. To add some activity to my day, I often get up early for a nice morning beach walk and typically take a walk during my lunch break. With this added activity I was sure my step count would be somewhere around 8,000 steps per day. You can imagine my surprise when I ended my day yesterday having only reached about 6,700 steps.

It is generally recommended we take at least 10,000 steps per day. According to a study published by the Department of Exercise and Wellness at Arizona State University, those who take:

• < 5,000 steps per day have a ‘sedentary lifestyle’


• 5,000-7,499 steps per day is typical of daily activity excluding sports/exercise and might be considered 'low active'


•  7,500-9,999 steps per day are likely to include some thoughtful activities (and/or elevated occupational activity demands) and might be considered 'somewhat active'


• >=10,000 steps per day indicate the point that should be used to classify individuals as 'active'


• > 12,500 steps per day are likely to be classified as 'highly active'

Granted I did not workout yesterday—you can guess what I’ll be doing when I get off work today! I’ve learned that counting your steps can actually be a fun and motivating activity. Several of our staff members have purchased FitBits (you may want to read Lisette’s hilarious FitBit confessional) and as a result, a friendly competition has sprouted between spouses, co-workers and even some guests!

I believe we underestimate the value of simply walking more throughout the day. Please watch the CNN report below and maybe you’ll be motivated to start counting your steps too!

Friday Fitness: Finding Inspiration in an MRI

Stop searching—this just might be the motivation you needed.  The image above is a cross sectional MRI of the thighs in three different adults.  The first, a 40 year old triathlete, depicts the femur in the center (darkest), surrounded by the quadriceps muscle and a thin layer of adipose tissue (fat).  The phrase, “if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it” is true of muscular tissue.  The process, termed atrophy, begins just weeks after halting a consistent exercise program.  Thus, the reason an active 40 year old can go from thighs resembling a lean sirloin to that of a fatty rib-eye after years of physical inactivity.  The stringy muscle surrounded by a side of mashed potatoes in picture two reaffirms the importance of an active lifestyle.

Yet, it’s never too late to begin an exercise program.  Adults can double their muscle strength within the first two months of starting.  Picture three is evidence that if you start today you can cease the expansion of fatty tissue and reinvigorate the growth of muscle.  The benefits of this as we age would lead to a dramatic improvement in quality of life.  Working out ain’t easy, sure.  But trying to get your old butt out of a chair or up a set of stairs when your muscles are withering away is much harder.

Taking the Extra Step

From Betsy Hood, Program Intern

Are you taking that extra step in your day? You may ask yourself, why take the extra step when I already workout? As we grow in a society that tends to make life’s tasks easier for us, we also tend to slack on the amount of physical activity we do. Therefore, we sometimes end up taking the easy way out. In the long run that can really add up. I would like to challenge you to think about how you could take that extra step in your day to not only increase your incidental activity (activity outside of working out), but to also help protect your health.

For most of us we feel like we run around constantly, whether that is to go get groceries, pick up the kids from school, or work all day. That does require movement, but think about this: have you ever sat in a parking lot and waited for the person in the front row to pull out? They just got to their car, still have a whole cart of groceries to load, but you’re supper excited because you’re going to get a front row parking spot. We have probably all been guilty of this a time or two, but in the time you waited to get your awesome parking spot you could have parked at the very end of the parking lot and walked in. Think about how many more steps you could have taken by parking at the end of the lot compared to the front row. Not to mention, you don’t run the high risk of door dings on your vehicle if you park way out in no man’s land. The extra step it took you to walk in and out of the store definitely adds up in your amount of daily activity. Your body is a machine that needs to be used, so don’t be afraid to use it.





 

What is the better choice?

As stated above, we live in a society that has made it easier to cut down on physical activity. For that matter, it is up to you to make a change. We’ve all heard the saying “every little bit counts,” so make it count! Every step and every minute that you have the opportunity to move do so. So your question may be; what else can I do to increase my incidental activity? Examples may include, but are not limited to:

• Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator


• Don’t just watch your kids/grandkids play, but play with them


• Bike or walk to work if applicable


• Get up to change the channel


• Sit on a stability ball at work instead of a chair


• Push mow the lawn


• Hand wash your car


• Get off the bus or taxi a couple blocks early and walking


• Clean the house


• Stand up and walk around while talking on the phone


• Cook dinner instead of going out or ordering take in


• Walk your dog

 All these ideas and more can help increase our fitness level and our overall health. So if every little bit counts, then it’s safe to say a lot of these decisions throughout your day can add up to make a huge difference. I challenge all of you to think about what you can do differently in your day to increase your activity level outside of working out. Remember to not always take the easy way out. Go out there and get moving!

Check out Lisette’s post on using a Fitbit as encouragement to add more steps to your day.

Could you be an Active Couch Potato?

Can someone exercise and still be a couch potato?  Up until recently, most of the studies on physical inactivity relied on self-reported measures but a recent Finnish study, using special shorts that can measure muscle activity, has strengthened the argument, if you sit eight or more hours per day your exercise binge might not be the sole solution.

The shorts were equipped with a special set of electrodes that were able to directly measure the muscle activity of the hamstrings and quadriceps both while exercising and when inactive.  The results showed that on days when volunteers exercised they used only about 13% more energy overall than on days they didn’t exercise.  But, surprisingly, how much people exercised or what kind of exercise they chose did not change the sitting time.  Both on the days they exercised and the ones they didn’t, they were sitting nearly 68% of the time. 

The Finnish study strengthens evidence published last month in the Archives of Internal Medicine that showed even if you exercise daily, sitting more than eight hours per day increased your chance of dying prematurely by 15%. 

So, exercise paired with otherwise unalloyed sitting should be avoided.  We should be just as cognizant of our non-exercise time as we are the time spent pounding the pavement or hitting the gym.  Look for opportunities throughout your day to move more often. 

Since many of us spend our time sitting while at work, check out some of these posts for being more active at the office:

Tips for a Healthy Cubicle

Office Chair Workout

10 Minute Workout Routine

One Big Happy, Healthy Family

Scheduling Break Time

Sitting Comparable to a Slow Death

Hilton Head Health would not have been in business 200 years ago; in fact, obesity was non-existent.  Sure we ate a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, nuts, seeds, whole grains and good fats.  But the real key to a healthy existence, was the fact that human beings were required to move.  As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, there is one thing nearly all modern Americans have in common: we sit all the time.  And, it is killing us!  A study by the American College of Sports Medicine showed that the average American moves only 500-2000 steps per day.  One mile is equal to 2000-3000 steps; therefore, the majority of Americans weren’t even traveling a mile in 24 hours.  Exercise is and will be a major health issue, but the real plague in our society is general physical inactivity.  Check out the infographic below…


Via: Medical Billing And Coding

Building a Culture of Health

Lowers the risk of stroke by 27%, reduces the reduces incidence of diabetes by approximately 50%, can reduce the mortality and the risk of recurrent breast cancer by approximately 50%, reduces the incidence of high blood pressure by approximately 40%, can lower risk of colon cancer by 60%, can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 40%, may be as effective in managing depression as Prozac or behavioral therapy.

 

Sounds like a marketing pitch for  the most recently discovered super berry from the jungles of South America. No, but as you have probably guessed by now, they are, according to the American College of Sports Medicine, the benefits of regular, moderate exercise. The fact that exercise in beneficial will obviously come as no surprise. The fact that the benefits are so powerful for so many things continues to surprise even me. And the benefits continue to grow.

 

Studies at Appalachian State University in North Carolina found that those who walked briskly for 45 minutes a day, 5 days a week, over a 12 to 15 week period had fewer and less severe upper respiratory infections, and had 25% to 50% fewer sick days than non exercisers.   Dr. David Neinman, director of App State’s Human Performance Lab commented that “No pill or nutritional supplement has the power of near daily moderate activity in lowering the number of sick days people take”.  

 

Not only is this important to you individually but it has tremendous  implications for employers. Encouraging employees to exercise and take other steps to improve their health, not only shows a commitment to their wellbeing, it is just good business. But encouragement may not be good enough, employees may need advice on how to get started  and even incentives to motivate them to exercise regularly and practice other healthy behaviors.

 

Over the past 30 plus years we have helped thousands of individuals manage their weight, improve their fitness and their overall health.   We are now in position  to help companies do the same thing for their employees.  If you are interested in starting a Wellness Program at your company contact Cheney Maddox at cmaddox@hhhealth.com for more information on our program.

 

Source: Wall Street Journal article, The Hidden Benefits of Exercise