Monday, February 16, 2009

Calorie Consumption

Fun (or not so fun) facts about food I'm still learning about and thought I should share:

400-600 Most people consume 400-600 calories a day just in drinks. Nutritionist recommend drinking water instead if you are looking at maintaining or losing weight.

7,100 The average number of calories consumed in the Thanksgiving meal.

My Pedometer

I'm excited that I finally got a pedometer for Christmas. I've heard you're supposed to take 5000 steps a day to "be healthy." I'm thinking "that's easy" since I teach science and dance, I am on my feet a lot and probably clock in over 10000 steps a day. Wrong. I learned in my sports medicine classes that walking is one of the best things you can do to stay healthy. We were also taught that many people feel they do not have to exercise outside of their work because "they're on their feet all day," "they already do heavy lifting," and the like. Research has shown that these "exercises" do not work during your job and you need to exercise outside your job. After tracking my steps this last week, it is easier for me to see why it is important to exercise outside the work place. Some days I am only getting in about 3000 -4000 steps and I made my personal goal to get about 6000 steps a day. Now that I am tracking my steps, I find that I am walking more and getting 6000-7000 steps a day. Go me!