How Much Should Your Trust Your Inner Exercise Barometer?

We all feel proud of ourselves after a good hard workout session. But are your extra efforts to promote activity in your daily life really making a difference? Consider this thought – what if by working out hard at the gym, you actually give yourself more breaks throughout the rest of the day? For example, instead of climbing the stairs, you take the elevator. Or, maybe you normally would have parked in the back of the parking lot, but now you find the closest spot so you don’t have to walk farther. Is that really you making those conscious decisions, or is your body responding to an inward “set point” for daily movement, a so-called “activitystat”?

This concept has been circulating as a question within the medical and scientific industries for some time, and recently, the New York Times published an article discussing the topic. One professor of endocrinology explored this possibility, and subsequently performed a study on children from three different schools that advocated varying hours of physical education requirements. The students were equipped with an accelerometer, a device that measures the physical activity of the wearer, and the results were astonishing.

Although the private school required over 5 times more activity from their students than a limited-resource urban school, the student activity levels were surprisingly equivalent. Why? Those who were required to perform more physical activity opted out of physical engagement after school. Despite the opposing arguments to this theory, the evidence is interesting.

What does this mean for us? If you want optimal health, don’t give yourself breaks just because you worked out. Park far away, take the stairs, walk on lunch breaks, walk up and down the aisle of airplanes. Get moving and don’t stop!

Reference:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/do-we-have-a-set-point-for-exercise/?emc=eta1