The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, sponsored by the American Heart Association and William J. Clinton Foundation and dedicated to battling childhood obesity, has issued eight ways families can get fit together. We list those eight ways below and go one step further, suggesting specific ways you can make this happen NOW! Meaning this week now.
Sometimes all you need to get moving is a good excuse. Permission, say, to get up from your desk and take a 30-minute walk. Which is what you have today from the American Heart Association.
Today is National Start! Walking Day, deemed so by the American Heart Association. Today, over your lunch “hour,” the AHA wants you to get up from your desk and take a 30-minute walk — a 30-minute walk-a-day being the AHA’s prescription for better heart health (in addition to yielding a host of other benefits). And if the boss raises an eyebrow and says, “Whoa! Bumstead! Where do you think you’re going?”, the AHA has a succinct elevator speech for you to deliver:
Overhauling one’s diet can be overwhelming, what with every little nutritional nuance to keep tabs on. This week, instead of trying to ride herd over every aspect of your eating, focus on one: added sugars.
A study presented at the American Heart Association‘s recent Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism/Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention 2011 Scientific Sessions underscores what shouldn’t be surprising: added sugars contribute to weight gain. Data accumulated as part of the 27-year-long Minnesota Heart Survey, a surveillance study of adults ages 25 to 74 living in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, showed a relationship between added sugars and body mass index. Seven surveys of the adults, ages 25 to 74, participating in the Minnesota Heart Survey were taken over its course, beginning in 1980. Here are the key findings:
America, you may have noticed, has developed a case of the runs. Hardly a weekend goes by when you don’t run across at least one 5K benefiting a worthy cause. They raise awareness and they raise a lot of money. They also give millions of runners a reason to train.
When I go to the gym and get my vitals checked, the first two things I look at — before my weight, before my percentage of body fat, before my BMI — are my blood pressure and pulse. I figure if my resting heart rate is low (typically in the low 50s, though I long for the day when I dip into the upper 40s and achieve “athlete” status) and my blood pressure is good (I shoot for 110/70). Not bad numbers for a 54-year-old guy.