Walking, Not Watching

In case you just returned from a week on Mars, you might not have heard that there was a really big storm this past week on the East Coast.  The reports said it would be powerful, and those reports were right.  Parts of New York and New Jersey were absolutely decimated. I live near DC so I was lucky… we did not get the brunt of Sandy’s wrath. It rained a ton - some nearby areas got 10 inches in less than 36 hours. There were some power outages, minor flooding and downed trees. But for the most part, damage was minimal in northern Virginia. Unfortunately for our fellow Americans just a few hours north, things were much worse and my heart and prayers go out to them.


Even here in the DC area, the entire area was still shut down for nearly two days while Sandy passed over us.  There was no rail or bus service, and residents were told to stay off the streets and hunker down inside. Everyone rushed to the supermarkets in the days leading up to the storm to stock up on non-perishables, batteries and bottled water. If you waited until Sunday afternoon to hit the store, you were unlikely to find any essentials like bread, butter or eggs. The shelves were completely picked over.  

After two days of basically sitting around, I was anxious to get out of the house and get back to my normal workouts and work routine. I have to be honest and admit I watched a whole lot of TV while stuck inside. I suppose I could have used my downtime to do something more useful like clean out some drawers or organize my bills. But instead I gave in to Tivo and OnDemand.  I can officially say that I am all caught up on Real Housewives – certainly a feat not worth repeating very often. I am not necessarily proud that I sat around like a slug for the majority of two days.  

My newfound laziness got me thinking about an article that afriend recently sent me about the correlation between amount of TV watched and life expectancy. If the findings from the study cited in this article are true, I managed to shave off almost 12 hours of my life in two days - just because I was sitting on my butt! And to make matters worse, according to the study, the two hours of exercise I managed to squeeze in on those two days does nothing to negate the damage done by watching all that television.

Fortunately, I don’t typically make a habit of sitting in front of the TV for hours on end each day. However, I do sometimes work at a computer for almost the entire day and I am not always good about taking regular breaks to walk around and stretch my legs.  Does this describe your daily work life as well?

This article is a good reminder of the importance of moving in general. Humans were not created to sit down all the time. And for those of us who don’t work in an active occupation, it might take more than the recommended 30 minutes of daily exercise to keep us healthy. Turns out all that advice about taking the stairs and parking further away from the store entrance is really good advice. It may sound simplistic, but it helps.  We probably ought to follow it more often.

I am happy to report that after two days of doing next to nothing, I spent the latter half of my week and this past weekend walking precincts for a congressional candidate – literally walking ALL DAY LONG. I am not suggesting that working out for hours on end every day is necessary to achieve optimal health, but I do think that spending less time sitting and more time being active is a step in the right direction.

Perhaps you could even walk to your polling place when you cast your vote this Tuesday. That way you could squeeze in a little exercise while you exercise your right to vote.