Fitness: You Can Watch Television and Burn Calories Too!

You don’t have to look very hard to find research articles that detail the odds of obesity, in relationship to the number of hours spent either watching television or sitting in front of the computer.  Researchers tell us that the metabolic rate associated with watching television is only slightly higher than sleeping.  Any thing else that you could be doing involves more energy expenditure, and that doesn’t even take into consideration all of those commercials about yummy high calorie foods.  It looks to me like they are just giving us one more thing to feel guilty about.

 

It doesn’t have to be that way.  If you use commercial time-outs to exercise instead of checking out the refrigerator contents you can beat this.  Television, after all, is what we do when we are bored or too brain dead to do anything else.  The average American watches about five hours of television a day.  One article that I read suggested keeping a set of weights, a yoga mat, and exercise CDs handy to guide you through some routines.  Then there are good old fashioned sit-ups, crunches, push-ups or jumping jacks that you can do during commercial breaks.  You can also strap on a pedometer and walk in place throughout a whole show, or if you are seriously into fitness you can park your treadmill or elliptical in front of the television.

 

An article by Karen Asp (Prevention, January 2005) talked about a TV friendly circuit design called Toning for Beginners. It alternates between moderate cardio moves during the shows to high-intensity bursts accompanied by muscle strengthening exercises to do during commercials.  She went on to describe a series of marches, lunges,  jog in place, jumping jacks, wall squats, triceps dips, and dumbbell twists, but I imagine that you could design your own routine just as easily.  I think you will find that commercials are really quite long and you can do a satisfying number of reps during that time frame.  So, don’t just sit there!