Let awareness change your mind and change your body!

Awareness is the first step to transforming your life and releasing those extra pounds you are done with!

Wouldn’t it be nice if today as you reflect over your day and noticed how you walked to and from office cubicles or up and down stairs to fetch this or that or maybe you parked on the edge of the larger parking structure and walked that few extra paces, that you actually already may be meeting the Surgeon Generals recommendation of exercise for a healthy life style.  Well then, “Why am I still holding on to this weight,” you might question?

Could it simply be because you were just unaware that your may already be getting enough exercise and that awareness could make all the difference? Hmmm.  That thought is a bit out there.  With just awareness I am going to make a shift in my health?  Yes, it’s true awareness can change everything according to a study done at Harvard by psychologist Ellen Langer and her student Alia Crum.

Harvard Study Shows how we perceive our physical fitness affects us.

Psychologist Ellen Langer and her student Alia Crum ran a study where a group of 84 housekeepers at four hotels were questioned and evaluated for their health status.  Ellen and Alia wanted to know primarily what the housekeepers perceived as their general health and if they exercised and how much.  They took a survey of all of the participants to get a base for the study, checking each participants weight, blood pressure, BMI, and beliefs about their own perceived health and exercise habits.  Most of the participants did not feel they exercised enough many said they did not feel as though they got any exercise despite the demanding job of cleaning for an average of 32 hours a week.

The group was divided and half of the group was told about the benefits of moderate exercise. This same group was told that exercise did not have to be hard or painful to be beneficial.  Then each one in one half of the study group were consulted individually and told how each activity they did while at work burned a specific number of calories.  That at the end of the day they infact received sufficient if not more than the surgeon generals recommended amount of activity each day to be healthy.

The other group was not told anything.  Four weeks later the survey’s and testing were done again and after verifying with the managers that there had been no changes in the work delegated to the housekeepers in the four weeks.

Amazing, just by becoming aware of my daily movements I can be more fit!

The finding’s were astounding, in the informed group there was an average 10 points drop in blood pressure, an average of 2 lbs weight loss, and informed participants had significantly lower ratio’s of body fat.  In the uniformed group their was little to no changes.  All of this because of awareness and perception.

Just reflecting over every physical detail of your day and acknowledging it can actually make your routine physical movement transform into an effective dose of exercise!

Now everyone is different and we all do have a wide range of physical needs, but awareness is a first step in the right direction.

Do something good for yourself, start releasing those unwanted pounds NOW!

I want to encourage you to take note daily what you are doing that is accumulating in your movement bank account. Every step counts, honor it and acknowledge what you are doing and then look for ways you can increase your movement so you can experience healthy weight loss.

Take the challenge and Use the Tools!

First step, Awareness.  Below you will find some tools and information that will help you become more aware of the activities you are currently engaging in and how many calories you may already be burning through out the day.  Shift your perception of your physical fitness and activity and reap the benefits.

Here are some are some activities you may already do on a regular basis,

(Based off of a woman average age 40, average height 5 foot 7 inches, weighing 175lbs)

Child Care- general caregiving sitting/kneeling-dressing,bathing,grooming, feeding, occasional lifting of child-

125 calories burned per hour

Sweeping-

96 calories per hour

Cleaning-heavy or major (e.g. wash car, wash windows, mop, clean garage) vigorous efforts-

222 calories per hour

Cleaning-light (dusting, straightening up, vacuuming, changing linen, carrying out trash) moderate efforts made-

95 calories burned per hour

Cooking- (bending, light lifting, stretching/reaching, chopping, washing)-

86 Calories per hour

Food Shopping-with Cart-

158 Calories per hour

Implied standing-laundry, folding or hanging clothes, putting clothes in washer or dryer, packing a suitcase-

63 Calories per hour

To Calculate more accurately for your age,weight,and height click and use this tool:

http://fitday.com/webfit/burned/calories_burned.html