NEWSWORTHY
NOTES
Gayle Gette, Extension/FNP Agent
For
release April 16, 2004
Towner County
Increase
Your Calorie Salary
A merchant might make more money by lowering prices and selling more
products because the prices
are
lower. There is a price, however, at which it is
no longer affordable to sell for less. The same is true
for trying to control
our weight by eating fewer and fewer calories
Eating less food works�up to a point. Eventually, however, it is
difficult to consume adequate
nutrients from the decreased amount of food. It is
hard to maintain a diet where we continually feel
hungry. And, finally, our
bodies, sensing they are being starved, become more efficient in using fewer
calories. Weight loss at that point actually may be less than on a
higher-calorie diet.
What if we could eat more, and still achieve or maintain a desirable weight?
Adding more activity to our lifestyles is like getting a free loan every day. It increases our �calorie salary� so we can consume more calories.
Use Your Feet More So You Can Eat More!
More of us now work in sedentary settings than in the past. Labor-saving technologies reduce calorie expenditure in many aspects of our lives. Not only can we sit on the sofa and watch TV for entertainment, we don�t even have to get up to change the channel!
With rising percentages of overweight adults and youth, energy intake and expenditure is often out of balance. While portion sizes may be larger than in the past, activity levels tend to be lower. Eating fewer calories is only half the answer; expending more calories is the other half.
More than 60% of American adults do not get the recommended 30 minutes of physical activity a day and 25% of American adult aren�t physically active at all,� according to America on the Move <www.americaonthemove.org>.
�The major barriers most people face when trying to increase physical activity are time, access to convenient facilities, and safe environments in which to be active,� according to Healthy People 2010, a set of health goals for America to achieve over the first decade of the new century. Physical activity is considered so important one of the goals recommends: Improve health, fitness, and quality of life through daily physical activity. <www.healthypeople.gov/Document/HTML/Volume2/22Physical.htm>
The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) studies successful weight control strategies of people 18 and older who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least one year. The average person listed with NWCR expends about 400 calories a day in physical exercise, with walking the most frequently cited activity.
"The major barriers most people face when trying to increase physical activity are time, access to convenient facilities, and safe environments in which to be active," according to Healthy People 2010, a set of health goals for America to achieve over the first decade of the new century. Physical activity is considered so important one of the goals recommends: Improve health, fitness, and quality of life through daily physical activity. <www.healthypeople.gov/Document/HTML/Volume2/22Physical.htm>
As a general guideline, a person will burn about 100 calories walking a mile. Expending just an additional 100 calories per day will help a person lose about 10 pounds a year. Or, allow a person to eat 100 more calories per day without gaining weight.
