Exercise and Burning Calories

As most of us all know, obesity is a HUGE problem in this country literally and figuratively. The amount of calories we take in should be close to the amount of calories that we burn. In order to burn calories our bodies must be active. My research project in physical therapy school was to determine if there was a different in calories burned between doing one bout of 30 straight minutes of aerobic exercise vs. two 15 minute bouts vs. three 10 minute bouts. The study showed that there was no significant difference. So, if you are unable to exercise for 30 minutes straight due to time, stamina, pain, etc, then try and be active throughout the day. Take a walk in the morning, or lunch, or after dinner. Also add in resistance training because this also helps burn calories.

A quick thing to remember is 3600 calories is equal to 1 pound of body weight. So if you take out 500 calories a day and burn 500 calories a day then you would lose 1 pound in roughly 3-4 days. This is obviously just one example. Most people may have to go at a slower rate.

Keep active everyone! Holiday season is right around the corner, so let's finish the year strong!

Pain and Fear

Pain and Fear. These often are associated with each other and for good reason. Pain is not a fun thing to go through and when you are in pain, you often are fearful to do something that will make it worse. This causes most people to stop doing things and stop moving. I see this everyday as a physical therapist. Now, its one thing if you are training for a marathon and you develop a pain in your knee and you need to back off a bit. It's another thing however if you begain to develop pain in your knee and you stop going up and down a flight of stairs or you stop going for your daily walk.

The best advice I can give is that if you are having pain and you are fearful of doing your normal daily activities then you should consult a doctor and/or a physical therapist because the longer that you stay in pain, most likely the worse your fear will get.

Remember increased activity does not always mean increased pain!

Cheers!