5 X 6 ≠ 30

It should be, in fact it is, a mathematical truism that 5 x 6 = 30. It turns out that it might be less true when one is speaking about six mini workouts versus one 30 minute workout. Even when the workout is nothing more exotic that walking about. I have claimed before that it made no difference whether one walked for 30 minutes or walked six times for five minutes each. The number of steps accumulated would be equal. The number of calories burned would be equal.  This is, of course, true. 

A study in the New York Times (which miraculously managed not to bash Donald Trump, or call half of Americans bigots, and/or tell me how wonderful Obamacare is) gave some evidence that it is actual beneficial to spread out the walking in smaller bursts multiple times during the day. I will accept this and simply try to do both. I will continue to take long walks, but I will be conscious that as often as possible I should get up and move about multiple times during the day. 

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Your Food Diary For:

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Quaker - Instant Oatmeal- Maple	800	160	10	20	1,300	60
	800	160	10	20	1,300	60
L U N C H
MARIANO'S - HUGE SPINACH SALAD	1,000	0	0	0	0	0
	1,000	0	0	0	0	0
D I N N E R
Sweet Onion Chick Teryaki	840	94	26	52	1,980	14
DARK COCOA MELTING WAFERS	500	55	30	7	102	48
	1,340	149	56	59	2,082	62
S N A C K S
Protein Bar - MET-Rx, 1 bar	310	29	10	32	95	1
	310	29	10	32	95	1
Totals	3,450	338	76	111	3,477	123
Your Daily Goal	2,852	356	95	143	2,300	107
Remaining	-598	18	19	32	-1,177	-16
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 922 extra calories from exercise today

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       Your Exercise Diary for:

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
Elliptical Trainer	99	959
Daily Total / Goal	99 / 30	959 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	356 / 210	3,969 / 4,130

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from the New York Times

WELL | MOVE

Work. Walk 5 Minutes. Work.

Phys Ed

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS DEC. 28, 2016

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Stuck at your work desk? Standing up and walking around for five minutes every hour during the workday could lift your mood, combat lethargy without reducing focus and attention, and even dull hunger pangs, according to an instructive new study. The study, which also found that frequent, brief walking breaks were more effective at improving well-being than a single, longer walk before work, could provide the basis for a simple, realistic New Year’s exercise resolution for those of us bound to our desks all day. There is growing evidence, of course, that long bouts of uninterrupted sitting can have undesirable physical and emotional consequences. Studies have shown that sitting motionlessly reduces blood flow to the legs, increasing the risk for atherosclerosis, the buildup of dangerous plaques in the arteries. People who sit for more than eight or nine hours daily, which for many of us describes a typical workday, also are at heightened risk for diabetes, depression and obesity compared to people who move more often. In response, researchers and some bosses have proposed a variety of methods for helping people reduce their sitting time at work, including standing workstations and treadmill desks. But such options are cumbersome and pricey, making them impractical for many work situations. Some experts have worried, too, that if people are physically active at the office, they might subsequently become more tired, grumpy, distracted or hungry, any of which could have an undesirable effect on work performance and long-term health. So for the new study, which was published last month in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, researchers from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center, the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute, and other institutions decided to test several methods of increasing movement among office workers. (The study was funded largely by Johnson & Johnson, with additional support from the Colorado Nutrition Obesity Research Center.) To start, the researchers invited 30 sedentary adult office workers to a university clinic to complete a battery of health tests and questionnaires. The researchers measured their heart rates and stress hormone levels and asked them to rank, on a numerical scale, their sense of how energetic or tired they felt, as well as how happy they were, and whether they were feeling puckish and longing for food or had little appetite just then. The volunteers also completed computerized games designed primarily to test their ability to concentrate and make decisions. Then, on three subsequent visits to the clinic, each volunteer simulated a six-hour workday. During one visit, the volunteers sat for the whole time with no interruptions, except for bathroom breaks. During another, they walked moderately for 30 minutes at the start of their experimental day, and then sat for the next five-and-a-half hours with no additional scheduled breaks. Finally, during a third visit, the volunteers sat for most of the six hours, but began each hour with five minutes of moderate walking, using treadmills at the clinic. At the start and end of each session, the researchers drew blood to check levels of stress hormones. And periodically throughout each day, they asked their volunteers to numerically rate their moods, energy, fatigue, and their appetites. The volunteers also repeated the computerized testing of their thinking skills at the close of each session. The researchers then analyzed the data. The numbers showed that on almost all measures, the subject’s ratings of how they were feeling rose when they did not sit for six uninterrupted hours. They said that they felt much more energetic throughout the day if they had been active, whether that activity was bunched into a single, longish walk at the start of the day or distributed into multiple, brief breaks. On other measures, though, the five-minute walks were more potent than the concentrated 30-minute version. When the workers rose most often, they reported greater happiness, less fatigue and considerably less craving for food than on either of the other days. Their feelings of vigor also tended to increase throughout the day, while they often had plateaued by early afternoon after walking only once in the morning.There were no differences on the scores on the cognitive tests, whether they sat all day or got up and moved. Stress hormones also remained steady during each visit. These results suggest that “even a little bit of activity, spread throughout the day, is a practical, easy way to improve well-being,” says Jack Groppel, a study author and co-founder of the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute. He points out that the walking breaks did not cause people to feel more tired or hungry, but instead had the opposite effect. They also did not alter people’s ability to focus, so, in theory, should not affect productivity (for good or ill).This study, however, was small in scale, short-term and limited by its dependence on the volunteer’s perceptions of their responses to the experiment. But even so, “it’s clear that moving matters,” Dr. Groppel says. So set your 2017 appointment calendar, he suggests, to devote five minutes every hour to physical activity, whether you walk up and down a staircase, along a corridor or just pace around your office.

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