Amy's Nutrition Picks: Fall Walks

We have all heard about the benefits of regular exercise. Current exercise recommendations now include increasing lifestyle activity and accumulating physical activity. How do these terms apply to us?

• Increasing lifestyle activity simply refers to finding a variety of ways to reduce being sedentary: walk farther to your car, walk to lunch rather than driving, play outside with your kids, etc. A simple way to measure your lifestyle activity is to wear a pedometer. A pedometer measures how many total steps you are taking throughout the day. 2,000 steps means you walked approximately 1 mile or burned 100 calories. If you choose to do this, set a goal to increase your steps by 200 steps a day each week. A person that focuses on lifestyle activity throughout the day can burn as many calories as an otherwise sedentary person that takes a noon-time jog.
• Accumulating physical activity refers to incorporating 10-minute bouts of exercise into your daily routine. For most people this is easier than carving out a chunk of time to attend an exercise class or go to the gym. This increased compliance often means that at the end of the week, the total minutes spent exercising is greater. Besides burning calories, a 10-minute bout of “moderate intensity” exercise can also improve cardiovascular health. A moderate intensity walk will take 20 minutes to walk 1 mile.

If you are interested in increasing your steps, meet outside the Harrison business office main entrance promptly at 1:00pm on Thursdays from September 21-October 12. We can go ½ mile or 1 mile, depending on the need of the group. Other Ogden Clinic locations are encouraged to organize a group walk as well!

Amy Cain, dietitian
(801) 476-2212