health | Fueled by Plants

Janetha over at Meals and Moves always comes up with the best challenges!

I am a super sedentary person. Sure, I work out 6 days a week, but if I’m not working out I’m typically sitting on my butt. Right now I am freelancing from home. Here is my typical routine: sleep (laying), get up, make coffee, have coffee and read email (sitting), workout, come back home, work (sitting), make lunch, go back to work (sitting), make dinner, watch tv with husband (sitting) or read (sitting), go to bed (laying). That’s a LOT of sitting in one day.

I always knew I should move more, but I really started to get concerned when a recent study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that sitting more than six hours a day raises your risk of death, regardless of physical activity level.

Enter Janetha’s May challenge:

For the month of May, Janetha is challenging readers to make time to move more throughout the day, outside of their actual workouts. Each day you can log your activity, and of course there will be drawings for awesome prizes.

Some ideas I’ve been tossing around for moving more throughout my day:

Go for a short walk (30 min. at lunch)
Stand up and stretch every 60 min. (I think I’ll set an alarm to go off on my computer as a reminder)
Do activity (e.g., jumping jacks, planks, push ups, air squats) while dinner is cooking

That’s all I have so far but I’m sure I’ll come up with more!

Do you have a sedentary job? Do you make an effort to get up and move around? What sort of activity do you incorporate into your day, other than working out?

It just might save your life.

A recent UK study published in the British Medical Journal found that people with low health literacy (i.e., people who have trouble understanding health information) are more likely to die prematurely. The low health literacy group was 75% more likely to die than people with medium or high health literacy. Although this study was restricted to older adults (52 years and older), the findings aren’t that surprising.

I often find it startling just how little most people know about health. Even when faced with life-threatening conditions, a lot of folks will just take the pill the doctor prescribes and that’s it. They don’t research their condition in order to find out what’s going on with their body. Yikes.

I realize I am probably preaching to the choir…chances are you wouldn’t be reading this blog unless you had some sort of interest in health. What have your experiences been like with friends and family? Why do you think people don’t take the time to educate themselves about their health?

You can read a synopsis of the study here. Full study available here.