Ten Top Tips Diary Group Feedback - Week 4

Keep moving!

Tip 7 is proving to be one of the toughest tips for our participants. This is not surprising, due to the way modern society has evolved lots of things are now automated and our physical exertion is minimal. It is not unusual for us to spend long periods of our time being inactive, like sitting watching TV or sitting at a computer or desk. Replacing your sitting time (where realistically possible) with more active pastimes like walking, juggling, running errands, gardening, house-hold chores, or stair-walking can help with weight control in 2 ways:

1. Prevent you from gaining weight (especially body fat), by helping us to keep a steady balance between the energy (calories) we take in from food and the energy we burn off from any activity we do
2. Lose weight by burning off more energy through activity than, the amount of energy (calories) we have taken in through eating and drinking

Handy Hints to help you get on your feet!

• Get-up during TV adverts, have a walk around, do some jumps, stretch or shake your body
• Socialise actively with friends: Walk and talk, rather than sit and chat
• If you spend a long time sitting at work try to spread your errands through-out the day: go to the post box, get-up to speak to someone rather than use the phone or email
• Stand-up and chat to work colleagues (even if you’re on the phone), rather than sitting, do leg raises or march on the spot (although this might get you some funny looks from your fellow colleagues, you’ll be working towards tip 7 perfectly!)

Stair walking and calorie burning

• Using the stairs, burns off more calories than standing in a lift or on an escalator
• Going up and down 120 stairs (or 8 flights, where 15 stairs is equal to 1 flight) can burn up to an extra 100 calories a day if you can manage to do this 3 to 4 times through-out the day. That’s an extra 700 calories burnt over a week, from just stair climbing
• Top Tips for Stair Walking</ br> - Count the number of flights of stairs you do a day, try and increase this by 3 extra flights per a day - If you work with a computer set reminders to yourself to go for a walk or to climb a flight of stairs to go to the loo! - Have a 10 minute break at work and try walking up and down the stairs - Climb the stairs at home between TV adverts