Shortcut to Extend your Life

What if I told you in 30 minutes a day you could:

• Get ripped
• lose weight
• extend your life
• reduce your risk of cardio-vascular disease

 My guess  is that you’d want to hear me out.  Well, there’s no gimmicks, or over-promising 5 step scheme behind it, all you have to do is

Walk

That’s right, just walk, every day … Let me give you some context to help you understand why doing something so easy could have such a profound life changing effects on your health.

Your body is designed to walk; we have an upright frame that requires a minimum amount of movement each and every day to function optimally.  That minimum suggested amount is roughly 10,000 steps or 5 miles … How far off were you today?  

Let’s do some comparisons:

• The average American Male takes 5,340 steps per day, or about 2.5 miles
• The average male in Switzerland takes 9,700 steps, almost double at 4.6 miles

As we have shifted our focus in society to jobs that require data entry or thought value, we have taken custom to sitting for the majority of our day.  We sit longer and move less, and it’s killing us.  

To be specific, if you sit in a chair or on the couch for 6 hours a day, you are reducing your lifespan by 7 years.  When you sit down, your body slows your metabolic rate to about one calorie per minute.  After sitting for 6 hours a day continuously (over a year), you will begin to see some long term negative effects take place.  Higher cholesterol, muscle atrophy, reduced oxygen intake (get winded easier), weight gain, reduction in bone mass, and finally, a 64% increase in the chance that you will die of Cardio Vascular disease!

There are plenty of tips and tricks out there to keep you moving while at work or watching TV

• Set an hourly alarm, each hour walk around the office, walk the dog, or just stand up and walk in place for a few minutes
• Stand up during commercials
• Stand up and pace back and forth while you take phone calls of meetings
• The list goes on, be creative, any chance you get to stand up… Take it!

Walking is recommended to all fitness types because it is so easy to implement and will not harm other fitness goals in the process.  Walking is very low impact, your walk will not cause any muscle fatigue or joint swelling (if healthy).  Walking burns fat and and won’t exhaust you in the process.  Since you will be walking slowly, it won’t force you to pull from your glycogen stores to produce the energy needed, over time this equates to a larger amount of fat lost.  Walking has even been proven to boost sexual libido in sedentary people.  And finally, walking makes you feel awesome!  If you start your day as I outline below, you will see an immediate change in your attitude as you get an easy personal win for the day.

So instead of having you try chair exercises over going outside and moving your body the way it was designed to, I present to you:

How to walk like a bad-ass:

• Go to bed, and wake up 45 minutes earlier than usual Once you wake up, drink a cup of coffee or take a 200mg caffeine pill
• 15 minutes later, get your shoes on, and get out the door WALK! You don’t need a destination, but if you have a schedule, make sure you don’t get too far out before you turn around
• Shower, and head to work knowing you have already done more activity than 50% of Americans

Some Tips:

• If you’re in a hurry, take your coffee with you on the walk
• If you are pressed to, a treadmill is just fine (the sunlight has added benefits you should try to take in)

So, get out of your chair, reclaim your 7 years of quality life, and use a morning walk to supplement your fitness goals.

Just Walk!