Am I active enough?
The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2005, gives science-based advice on food and physical activity choices for health. The Dietary Guidelines describe a healthy diet as well as encourage Americans to increase their physical activity. We have talked to you about Caring Medical’s approach to a healthy diet in many of the previous newsletters. But basically it involves figuring out your diet type so that you will know what kinds of food are best for your particular body type. After you do this, it is up to you to control the portion sizes and incorporate activity into your lifestyle. Unfortunately, however, many times what one person calls “physical activity” is really just activities of daily living – NOT actual exercise!
Physical activity simply means movement of the body that uses energy. Walking, briskly pushing a baby stroller, house-cleaning, climbing the stairs, playing soccer, or dancing the night away are all good examples of being active. And it is certainly good to become more active, adding in walking when you might normally drive etc.
However, in order to achieve health benefits, such as cardiovascular protection, osteoporosis prevention, and weight management, physical activity should be moderate or vigorous and be sustained for at least 30 minutes per day, 60 minutes per day if you would like to lose some weight or are trying to achieve maximum fitness.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines moderate physical activities as the activities such as the following:
Walking briskly (about 3 ½ miles per hour)
Hiking
Active Gardening/yard work
Dancing
Golf (walking and carrying clubs)
Bicycling (less than 10 miles per hour)
Weight training (general light workout)
Vigorous physical activities include:
Running/jogging (At least 5 miles per hour or 12 minutes/mile)
Bicycling (more than 10 miles per hour)
Swimming (freestyle laps)
Aerobics
Walking very fast (4 ½ miles per hour)
Heavy yard work, such as chopping wood
Weight lifting (vigorous effort)
Basketball (competitive)
Some physical activities are not intense enough to help you meet the recommendations. Many of our patients will tell us that they have started an exercise program, but the amount of actual activity that they perform is very minimal. Don’t get us wrong, it’s great that you are working at becoming more active. However, we want you to realize that you really need to get M-O-V-I-N-G to achieve the health benefits that you want. Remember, that although you are moving, these activities do not increase your heart rate, so you should not count these towards the 30 to 60 minutes per day that you want to reach. Activities such as walking at a casual pace, such as while grocery shopping, and doing light household chores do not count as physical activity.
As you know, many of the patients at Caring Medical come to see us because they are in pain or have sustained an injury. Many of our patients, therefore, state that exercise is very difficult for them to incorporate into their lifestyle plans. As you may or may not know, we utilize an injection treatment called Prolotherapy to stimulate the body to repair the injured areas. Prolo is short for “proliferate” or to grow. Prolotherapy causes your body to re-grow damaged ligaments, tendons, and cartilage. So if you are unable to incorporate exercise into your life because you are hampered by an injury or pain, give us a call. Nearly all of our patients are able to improve their level of activity after receiving treatment. If you have still not come in to Caring Medical for Diet Typing, come on in! Bathing suit season is just around the corner!!!
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