How Effective Is Housework for Significant Weight Loss?
Okay, so housework burns calories. So does sleeping. You’re alive, you burn calories, but housework will not lead to significant or even moderate weight loss.
In fact, being that you’ve already been doing housework all along, it’s not going to slim your body and make you fitter.
It’s true that cleaning house requires energy, but it is not an effective strategy for getting and staying physically fit and healthy.
While some fitness experts (and even medical professionals) like to offer the “do housework” as an exercise alternative, obese women who employ such a strategy will continue to fail in meeting their fitness and health goals, unless they engage in other calorie-burning and structured exercise activities that amount to a real workout.
What about extra housework?
Extra housework can actually be a stepping stone to getting a very morbidly heavy individual off the sofa or even out of bed, as it creates more movement than they’re normally used to, and will get the blood circulating.
But it’s a small stepping stone, and that’s all.
Maintaining a clean house is an activity that all individuals should engage in anyway. It’s a constant in an equation.
Living in a dirty house can add to depression, heightened stress and low-self-esteem, which can lead to increased eating and lack of motivation for structured workouts or athletic activities, which leads to even more excess weight added to one’s body.
The smart, effective approach is to keep your home cleaned and then hit the gym (or home workout devices) for the muscle toning and aerobic workouts that will bring you a transformed physique.
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Cleaning house cannot possibly duplicate the cardiorespiratory effects that structured cardiovascular exercise, especially that of interval training, can.
Do not believe this for a single moment.
Interval training is when you alternate brief high effort exertion with casual pacing.
Cleaning house is a good habit to keep, but not for attaining fat loss, physical fitness or good health.
A very overweight individual who’s serious about getting healthy, physically fit and losing bodyfat needs to think beyond the vacuum and washcloths, and embrace structured strength training and cardio exercise.
Pictured below are examples of exercises that will really help you lose weight.
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So how do you get started? It’s as simple as joining a gym or purchasing some basic exercise equipment for home workouts.
A few pairs of dumbbells, some tension bands, a kettlebell and a heavy ball are all you need to get started if you don’t plan on joining a gym.
However, you’ll want to see if you can come up with any compelling reasons for why you can’t get a gym membership, being that there are options for all budgets.
A gym membership will motivate you more to stick to a workout, and will offer a ton more options as far as different equipment, dumbbells and kettlebells in all weights, plus a variety of group fitness classes and different kinds of cardio equipment.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Top image: Shutterstock/Nomad_Soul
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Aerobics Classes vs. 10,000 Steps a Day for Fitness
Which is the winner? 10,000 steps a day on a pedometer or cardio aerobics classes — even if they’re done only a few times a week?
Rethink putting all your eggs in that basket called “10,000 Steps a Day” and focus on cardio classes.
For the study, headed by Gordon Bell of the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta, 128 sedentary women and men ages 27 to 65 were recruited. None had known disease.
After six months, subjects in a supervised aerobics program had far greater reductions in systolic (the “top number”) blood pressure; perceived exertion; and peak oxygen uptake.
Do 10,000 steps a day keep the doctor away?
The paper explains that the number of steps in the walking group were gradually built up until they were prescribed 10,000 steps daily — to be completed every day of the week.
They completed 92 percent of this prescription. The adherence rate was not surprising, since pedometer use is easy and requires very little planning.
The aerobics fitness group, on the other hand, had heart rate monitoring during exercise plus a few other requirements.
Both groups experienced fitness benefits such as lower body mass index. But those in the traditional aerobics program had a greater improvement in fitness than did the walkers.
localfitness.com.au
It’s crucial to note that the “walking” for this study was mere walking to reach a total of 10,000 steps a day.
Merely accumulating 10,000 steps every day is not the fairest way to make a comparison against aerobics classes.
Not only would I like to see a comparison between aerobics classes and walking using high intensity interval training, but also walking at a moderately intense pace, sustained for 45 minutes.
I’m not the least bit surprised that in this study, the aerobics classes came out the winner, because these are designed to get the heart rate elevated, and there is fluctuation in moves, so that there are periods that are challenging mixed in with easier sequences.
Merely accumulating 10,000 steps every day does not necessarily involve elevation in heart rate or getting heavily winded.
The 10,000 steps a day approach is fine as a backdrop to a more concrete fitness program, but should not be considered the be-all, end-all, for fitness.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: Freepik.com asierromero
Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100517111904.htm
How Much Walking Lowers Postmenopausal Breast Cancer Risk?
The human body was meant to walk more than sit around, so it’s no surprise that yet another study shows that walking cuts breast cancer risk in women after menopause.
American Cancer Society researchers found that breast cancer risk was lowered by 14 percent in postmenopausal women who walked at least seven hours per week, whether they were overweight or not.
The full report appears online (Oct. 4, 2013) in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention.
- Over 73,500 postmenopausal women were studied, beginning in 1992.
- Over the next 17 years, 4,760 of these women ended up with a diagnosis of breast cancer.
Study Findings
Those who walked seven or more hours a week — but performed no other physical activity such as aerobics classes — had a 14 percent reduced risk of breast cancer, when compared to women who walked three or fewer hours every week.
Women who exercised in addition to walking had a 25 percent lower breast cancer risk, when compared to the least active subjects.
An Hour of Walking a Day Keeps the Doctor Away
The paper points out that if a woman averages an hour a day of walking, this will “modestly” lower breast cancer risk, and that more rigorous and longer activity will lower the BC risk even more.
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Further, the study showed that being overweight or even obese did not interfere with this benefit. Nor did HRT.
- Moderate walking is defined as 3 mph.
- Vigorous exercise means an increased heart rate and (usually) sweating.
Tips on Getting in at Least Seven Hours a Week of Walking
Get a Standard Treadmill
Throughout the day, hop on the treadmill for 10-minute walking segments. Do not hold on.
If you can set the treadmill near your TV, you’ll easily get in an hour of deliberate walking every day. But remember, it should be at least 3 mph — and keep your hands off the machine.
Get a Treadmill Desk
For computer work you can use a treadmill desk and easily accumulate an hour a day of deliberate walking.
Walk Your Dog Longer
Or if you’ve been thinking of getting a puppy, now is the time.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified by the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained clients of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
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Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131004090815.htm
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Why the Ab Wheel Hurts Your Armpits & Solutions
Armpits hurt when doing the ab wheel or roller?
You may find that discomfort in the armpits is what ultimately stops you from doing more reps with the ab wheel, versus fatigue in your abdominal muscles.
This is because as you extend outward with the ab roller, the muscles that run along under your armpits get quite a stretch.
In order to feel this stretch good, you’d need to be fully extending yourself when using the ab wheel.
Many people are not able to do this, and do only partial repetitions; thus, they will not feel discomfort in their armpits.
I was feeling discomfort under my arms when using the ab wheel, and I was quitting my sets before my abdominal muscles had had it.
It’s important to note that I would very rarely, however, use the ab roller in the first place.
Thus, inconsistent use of this gadget will not promote building up endurance under the arms. Unless…you start spending some time hanging.
Yes, hanging. This is what I ended up doing when I found myself doing my pull-up/chin-up workouts at home, rather than at the gym, due to time constraints.
I have a chinning bar, but because I don’t have a lat pull-down machine, I would spend some time just hanging on the bar as a warmup.
All of that body-weight hanging ended up preparing my underarms for the ab wheel.
So one day I decided to use the ab wheel. To my delight, I just kept on rolling out all the way without feeling any strain or discomfort in my armpits.
I immediately connected the dots and realized that all of that hanging on the home chinning bar had simulated the motion used in the ab roll-out.
So how often and how much should you hang to make your armpits immune to any discomfort while using the ab wheel?
Once a week worked for me. It may also work for you as well.
Begin by hanging only a few seconds, then placing your feet on a support for a second, then hanging a few seconds, up to 20 seconds. Rest a minute.
Repeat but hang three seconds, in ratio to one second of foot support, up to 20 seconds. Rest a minute.
Hang four seconds to one second of rest; then five seconds to one second of rest, with the last set going to 25 seconds.
This is all you may need to do. At a once-a-week pace, it should take 4-6 weeks to prep your armpits for the ab wheel. It may take sooner. It may take longer. But that’s how to do it.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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