New Fitness Study: Slight modifications in our sedentary work time can make us healthier!

A new study out of Finland and another study out of Australia  backs up the idea that for people in sedentary jobs minor modifications in daily non-exercise activities may make a big difference increasing health. 


The Finnish study used clothing technology to measure an individuals activity. The results showed that irrespective of the individual's fitness training,  the muscles are inactive about 70 per cent of the day.


In other words, these studies are saying regardless of your gym time or exercise program, the amount of sitting time has a significant effect of your overall health. 


Reducing sitting time seems to be Key


It might be as simple as standing up and getting your own copies from the printer, your own coffee or standing up to talk each time your phone rings.  Some companies like Boeing offer ergonomic desks that can move into standing positions.  I also like to use http://e.ggtimer.com/  to remind me to get up and stretch. 


As the Finnish study concludes:
"Exercise for fitness, regardless of its duration, does not decrease the inactivity time during normal daily life. This is possible by slight modifications in daily non-exercise activities."


Slight modifications in our inactive time can make us healthier. This is good news for those of us with jobs in front of a computer! - MF

(*Exercise for fitness does not decrease the muscular inactivity time during normal daily life -Research Center, Department of Biology of Physical Activity, University of Jyväskylä, Finland)

(*Sitting time and all-cause mortality risk in 222 497 Australian adults -Level 2, Medical Foundation Building. hidde.vanderploeg@sydney.edu.au)

What does healthy look like? Confronting the fashion industry for distorting healthy ideals.

The super skinny ideal is an unhealthy image for women and distorts the average consumers idea of what healthy looks like, says an article from last month's Plus Model Magazine. This article has drawn controversy as it confronts the fashion and diet industries practice of "using standard size models that actually meet the criteria for anorexia."  The article goes on to explain that the "Twenty years ago the average fashion model weighed 8% less than the average woman. Today, she weighs 23% less"  and " Ten years ago plus-size models averaged between size 12 and 18. Today,the majority of plus-size models on agency boards are between a size 6 and 14, while the customers continue to express their dissatisfaction." 
It's clear that the over $50 billion dollar a year diet industry helps fuel this distortion to keep self esteem low and money flowing in.  This article seems to question; how far has this barrage of super skinny imagery moved our internal pictures of what healthy looks like off the mark.  It is good to finally see these images questioned. Since it is scientifically impossible to look at someone who is a size 0 or 2 and a person who is say a size 12 or 16 and be able to determine who is healthier.  We know from research that the most important part of gaining health is related to exercise and lifestyle regardless of size.


 The article went on to post images that show the startling comparison between an average size 12 - Russian Model Katya Zharkova ( who is a Plus size model)  and a "straight size" model.  - MF
 Read more about this article and more photos at the link below:
plus-size-bodies-what-is-wrong-with-them-anyway?

Picture from Victoria Janashivili/Plus Model Magazine

Great video 23 and 1/2 - With a few important quotes from the researcher!

This week Cris and Marla will be at the UW Medical Center giving a talk to the staff on "Motivation and Fitness."  We also found a great video online about fitness, "23 and half" a few items to keep in mind while watching this. 


An important quote below from the research Dr. Mike Evans is referring to in his video:


"We've studied this from many perspectives in women and in men and we get the same answer: It's not the obesity—it's the fitness."
-Steven Blair, P.E.D., Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research, 2004

"Groundbreaking work on fitness and weight has been done by [epidemiologist Steven] Blair and colleagues at the Cooper Institute. They have shown that the advantages of being fit are striking and that people can be fit even if they are fat … and thus have lowered risk of disease. A remarkable finding is that heavy people who are fit have lower risk than thin people who are unfit."
-Dr. Kelly Brownell, Director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, 2003

- MF

2012 Tweaking Resolutions: The NEW 5 - Steps to Improved Fitness!

#1 Don't make your exercise plan contingent on what you weigh -Studies show it's the exercise not the weight loss that is making you healthier. Injuries and just plain quitting, are the two biggest reasons people end up back on the couch. Make your exercise plan easy.

#2  Use a heart rate monitor for biofeedback -With this simple piece of technology you can easily learn how to see your progress in real fitness terms, not in pant size. 

#3  Talk Nice To Yourself - When it comes to motivation, nothing stops forward movement cold like harsh criticism. So talk nice to yourself and praise small baby steps toward your goal. Time plus consistent, slow progress wins the race. Especially when the finish line is health (good physical and good mental health).

#4  Start slow - It only takes a 12 minutes of walking a day to make a long term difference in health!


#5 Have Fun - Everything is better when it's fun. Remember what it was like to go outside and just play at being active?  All Activities count! Tag your it!



-MF

Experience Life Magazine Blog on Ramping up your Fitness- Mentions "Fresh Off the Couch"

"If you’ve been meaning to ramp up your fitness efforts but just haven’t quite gotten around to it, or if you’ve started exercising but don’t know where to go from here, this is the book for you. Authors Fields and Kessler first present a “Cognitive Fitness” program designed to get both your brain and body on board, whatever size and shape that body happens to be. Then they ease you into a smart, strategic, doable exercise program that builds your motivation and strength in equal measure. Making expert-level strategies like heart-rate and interval training accessible to a beginner audience, Fields and Kessler are serious about helping you upgrade your fitness for good — for the real-life reasons that matter to you. They don’t just cheer you on with a bunch of “you can do it” encouragements, they teach you how and why to use a heart monitor, pack a gym bag, and schedule plenty of rest and rewards into your routine. Each chapter ends with a seven-day chart to help you map your progress in its particular area. Whether you’re actually stuck on the couch or just stuck in a pattern of exercise resistance, this guide will help clear the cranial roadblocks and help you have a good time getting fit. " Experience Life Magazine
http://experiencelife.com/article/fresh-off-the-couch/

To Live Longer & Healthier - Focus on Fitness, NOT Weight - Says new study

A new study reported in this week's issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Medical Association  concluded that people can worry less about their weight as long as they continue to maintain or increase fitness levels.  Which is good news for those who are  physically active but have trouble losing weight.  Researchers say fitness pays off in a lower risk of premature death, regardless of weight.

"To reach that conclusion, researchers in the U.S. studied the fitness levels of 14,345 participants using treadmill tests over six years. After more than 11 years of follow-up, those who maintained or improved their fitness levels lived longer, regardless of whether the numbers on the scale stayed the same or even went up, the researchers said."  In an article from  cbc news the study's lead researcher went on to say,

"Given the great difficulties of losing weight and maintaining a reduced weight over the long term, this study underscores the benefits of maintaining and improving fitness to reduce mortality risk independent of weight change," said the study's lead researcher, Duck-chul Lee, a physical activity epidemiologist in the department of exercise science at the University of South Carolina.

"You can worry less about your weight as long as you continue to maintain or increase your fitness levels," he added. 

"In conclusion, maintaining or improving fitness is associated with a lower risk of premature deaths from all-causes and cardiovascular disease in men," the study's authors wrote.

To live longer and healthier lives increased attention needs to be placed on strategies to maintain or improve fitness. and moving the focus away from weight loss.  MF

Studies get closer to understanding how exercise benefits the Brain

A recent article from the New York Times Health Section by GRETCHEN REYNOLDS  outlines how recent studies have new evidence that short bursts of intense exercise may increase a  protein known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, in the brain.  BDNF is known to promote the health of nerve cells in the brain.   One recent study in Ireland suggests that increases in BDNF prompted by exercise may play a particular role in improving memory and recall. 
Reynolds article went on to describe a recent experiment involving aging pilots. "The experiment, published last month in the journal Translational Psychiatry, scientists at Stanford University School of Medicine asked 144 experienced pilots ages 40 to 65 to operate a cockpit simulator three separate times over the course of two years. For all of the pilots, performance declined somewhat as the years passed. A similar decline with age is common in all of us. Many people find it more difficult to perform skilled tasks — driving an automobile, for instance –  as they grow older, says Dr. Ahmad Salehi, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford and lead author of the study. "

" These aging pilots carried a common genetic variation that is believed to reduce BDNF activity in their brains. The men with a genetic tendency toward lower BDNF levels seemed to lose their ability to perform complicated tasks at almost double the rate of the men without the variation.

While the pilot experiment wasn’t an exercise study, it does raise the question of whether strenuous exercise could slow such declines by raising BDNF levels, thereby salvaging our ability to perform skilled manual tasks well past middle age.

“So many studies have shown that exercise increases levels of BDNF,” says Dr. Salehi. While he notes that other growth factors and body chemicals are “upregulated” by exercise, he believes BDNF holds the most promise.

“The one factor that shows the fastest, most consistent and greatest response is BDNF,” he says. “It seems to be key to maintaining not just memory but skilled task performance.”

Dr. Salehi plans next to examine the exercise histories of the pilots, to see whether those with the gene variant, which is common among people of European or Asian backgrounds, respond differently to workouts.

In people who have the variant and less BDNF activity, “exercise is probably even more important,” he says. “But for everyone, the evidence is very, very strong that physical activity will increase BDNF levels and improve cognitive health."

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/how-exercise-benefits-the-brain/?smid=tw-nytimeshealth&seid=auto