That's Fit

Welcome to Walking the Walk, a feature that takes a deeper look at commonly shared diet and fitness advice. Every other week, I'll choose one piece of advice and practice it for seven days. Then I'll report back on what I discovered about making it work in real life and how it affected my own personal fitness -- and how it ultimately can affect your own efforts.

Ask a celebrity mom how she stays fit and she'll usually demur, "Oh, I just chase my kids around all day." Insert eye-roll. Unless you've got the metabolism of a mouse, keeping your kids busy isn't going to whittle that waist down to the celebrity-standard size double zero. Either they aren't eating, or they're being less than honest.

But for the rest of us -- those who aim to be physically fit but a little more on the average side -- can chasing your kids all day count as fitness? I think so ... that playground equipment can be surprisingly adaptive to an adult workout, after all.

During this week's Walking the Walk experiment, I aim to find out exactly how much of a workout I can get chasing my kids around all day.

Welcome to Walking the Walk, a feature that takes a deeper look at commonly shared diet and fitness advice. Every other week, I'll choose one piece of advice and practice it for seven days. Then I'll report back on what I discovered about making it work in real life and how it affected my own personal fitness -- and how it ultimately can affect your own efforts.

Common diet advice tells us that we should be able to have our cake (or cookies or brownies or ice cream) and our healthy weight, too ... as long as we remember that treats are treats and are to be only eaten occasionally.

This works for a lot of people. And then there are the rest of us, the ones who buy a bag of snack-sized candy bars, intending to eat just one now and then, and then manage to devour half the bag in one sitting.

With friends like sugar, who needs enemies?

In every single weight loss attempt I've ever made, sugar was the thing that eventually tripped me up. But this time around, it's different. I've had a great deal of success, and I'm doing everything I can to keep those diet derailers from stopping my "downward" progress.

Since my biggest diet derailer is sugar, it has to go. Not for good, but for the long haul. Until my new healthy eating habits are firmly in place, letting myself indulge in even a little treat here and there is playing with fire.

Join me on this week's Walking the Walk, where I learn to live without my favorite vice. No processed or added sugars, period. Buckle up, because it promises to be a wild ride.

Welcome to Walking the Walk, a feature that takes a deeper look at commonly shared diet and fitness advice. Every other week, I'll choose one piece of advice and practice it for seven days. Then I'll report back on what I discovered about making it work in real life and how it affected my own personal fitness -- and how it ultimately can affect your own efforts.

It's weird to think that eating something that your body never actually digests can improve your health, but that's the story of fiber. Fiber is the part of a plant food that can't be absorbed by the body, so it virtually just takes a ride through your intestines.

But just by being there, fiber does your body good. It improves the health of your digestive track by moving things along. Soluble fiber, or fiber that dissolves in water, can absorb sugar before it's digested by the body, which can help prevent and control diabetes. Insoluble fiber prevents constipation and may lower the risk of colon cancer. Fiber can even help lower cholesterol levels.

In addition to all that goodness, fiber-rich foods help you stay full, a definite benefit when you're trying to lose or maintain weight. And since foods that are rich in fiber are also full of antioxidants and other healthy nutrients, you're getting a double whammy of good nutrition.

Most experts recommend that we get 25 to 35 grams of fiber a day. My challenge this week is to do just that.

Welcome to Walking the Walk, a feature that takes a deeper look at commonly shared diet and fitness advice. Every other week, I'll choose one piece of advice and practice it for seven days. Then I'll report back on what I discovered about making it work in real life and how it affected my own personal fitness -- and how it ultimately can affect your own efforts.

When I returned home from driving my daughter to school last week, I found my husband waiting for me. "You drove?" he said, his eyebrows up. "We were late!" I argued. He rolled his eyes. "It's coooollld," I whined. This got nowhere with the man who rides his bike through blizzards.

I couldn't argue with him because he had a valid point. It's silly for me to fire up our minivan when, if not for a few houses, I can practically see the school from our front porch. (But we were late!) Walking my daughter to school and home again is an easy way to get an extra 20 minutes of physical activity into my day.

According to WalkScore, my neighborhood scores a 60 out of 100 for walk-ability. By walking 15 minutes or less, I can reach video stores, convenience stores, a fruit market, multiple parks, a pharmacy, restaurants, a hair salon (though not my hair salon), school and extra-curricular activities, my husband's workplace, and our city's downtown. We already sold one of our cars, and if I want to be honest with myself, there's often little reason for us to use our other vehicle.

It's easy to become sedentary when you work from home. I was shocked last winter when I put on a pedometer to count my daily steps, which experts say should add up to a minimum of 6,000 a day, and optimally 10,000. Walking just makes good sense -- it gets me moving, keeps me healthy, and saves on gas. So my rules for this week's Walking the Walk are this:

• If I can walk to it in less than 15 minutes, I will.
• If I can't, I'll try to bike it. If not, then I'll park in the farthest parking spot possible so I can still benefit from the extra steps.
• No elevators or escalators allowed -- it's all stairs for me!
  
  

Click "next" to find out how the week went.

Day 1: First day, first dilemma. This morning, I needed to take my three-year-old to story time at the library and then go get my allergy shot. The problem? The locations are on opposite sides of town, neither in walking distance. It hardly seemed right to kick off this "walking" week by hopping in my van the first chance I got. I had to get creative.

Since my husband was at home, we decided he would take our younger daughter to story time on his bike. I hopped on my own bicycle to ride to the allergist. It was the first time I'd ridden my bike without a child aboard in years, so it was kind of fun. It made me wonder why I don't use my bike for transportation more often.

Day 3: Groceries are a problem. I need too many to just run to the (expensive) nearby market. I could take the bike with the trailer attached, but good parents don't typically leave their young children at home alone. If I put the kids in the trailer, then I don't have room for groceries. Clearly, it's time to fire up the van for the first time this week. At least that's a small accomplishment.

To limit the number of car trips I make this week, I write out a list of all my out-of-walking distance errands and plan to do them at the same time. Really, I should be doing this anyway. At each stop, I park the car as far away as possible from the entrance. At the veterinarian, this means walking just a few additional feet. But at the big box grocery store where I stock up and some of my other stops, I bet I walked the length of a football field, which really adds up.

My only regret? That I didn't wear a pedometer to see how many extra steps this added to my day. Even if you can't walk everywhere, I think this is a worthwhile way to get a few extra steps in on a regular basis. It definitely takes a new mindset, though. Our busy modern lives have trained us to get in and get out as fast as possible. It was really tempting to grab that up close parking spot to make our errands go quicker, so it will take some mental work to make this a habit.

Day 5: My three-year-old doesn't like our new routine. As we headed out for our third trip to the school for the day, she stood in the driveway, stomping her feet. "We always walk EVERYWHERE," she shouted at me. I thought about correcting her. After all, we've only been walking everywhere for five days, not "always," but then I remembered who I was dealing with. So I opened the garage door and pulled out the wagon instead.

In all honesty, I'm beginning to feel the same way. Though I love all the extra physical activity we're all getting -- and it's paid off in helping me over a weight loss plateau -- it takes planning and time to walk everywhere. Twenty minutes for each trip to school -- that's an hour out of my day. After dinner, we walk to an extra-curricular activity -- another 30 minute round trip.

Of course, on the flip side is the fact that I got an hour and a half of physical activity in, enough that I don't feel the need to do a cardio workout. So maybe it all balances out in the end.

Day 7: Another family who lives in the neighborhood has spotted us walking to school all week and was inspired to start walking too, even though they live several blocks farther from the school than we do. That alone makes the week worth it, I think. I've also asked the principal why they don't have a bike rack. The answer? "Because no one's ever ridden their bike to school before." I find that really sad and am bringing the issue to the PTA.

Other things that make this whole week worth the effort: My new, more shapely calves and the fact that I haven't spent a penny on gas all week.

It's time to decide -- is this a healthy habit that can be realistically worked into day-to-day life?

• Piece of cake! I can definitely work this into my daily routine.
• Not my cup of tea. This is harder than I imagined. Still, I plan to stick with it and do my best.
• Nuts! This seems nearly impossible to keep up. But I'll definitely do it whenever possible.

It's a tie! And here's why: I really enjoyed my week of walking everywhere. I got plenty of fresh air and sunshine, lots of extra exercise, and I saved on fuel and did my share to protect the environment. But I also realize that walking or biking everywhere just isn't practical 100% of the time. We had really great weather all week long, but the cold, rain, and snow are on their way, for one thing.

We also made some sacrifices this week, a few that I'm not willing to make every day. For instance, instead of taking my three-year-old to a tiny tumblers class in a neighboring community, I took her to our neighborhood park instead. Sure, she still had fun and got some exercise, but she also missed out on an opportunity to socialize with other kids her age.

So here's my compromise: WalkScore said our neighborhood was 60% walkable, so 60% of the time (or more), I'm going to do my best to walk or bike. We'll keep walking to school, to neighborhood activities, and to use the nearby business district to fill as many of our needs as possible. That way, when we do climb into our van for something that's a little farther away, I can feel good about the fact we're using it far less than we used to.

Want to try adding a little more walking into your daily routine? Visit WalkScore to find out just how walkable your neighborhood is and to zero in on businesses that are within walking distance of your home.

Another trick is to get a city map (or print out a Google map of your neighborhood) and make a "walking circle." Figure out how far you're willing to walk -- one mile is a good place to start -- and then set a compass for the appropriate distance. Set your home as the center point, then use the compass to draw a circle around it. Aim to walk to any destinations that fall within that circle.

Of course, not everyone lives in a walkable neighborhood, nor do they live close enough to walk or bike to work. Get more walking in your day by:

• Driving halfway or more to work, then parking your car and walking the rest of the way.
• Hand delivering messages, rather than using email.
• Taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
• Multi-tasking: Pace the halls while waiting for a doctor's appointment, walk around the field during your child's soccer practice.
• Taking a lunchtime hike around the block.
• Get off the bus or train early -- try one or more stops ahead of your destination and walk.
  
  

The whole point is, you burn more calories by walking than by sitting still, so the more movement you can squeeze into your day, the better!

Do you walk when you could drive? What kinds of tips and tricks can you share with our readers to make this healthy habit stick?

Got a Walking the Walk idea you'd like to see Bethany try for seven days? Share it with us in comments!

Welcome to Walking the Walk, a feature that takes a deeper look at commonly shared diet and fitness advice. Every other week, I'll choose one piece of advice and practice it for seven days. Then I'll report back on what I discovered about making it work in real life and how it affected my own personal fitness -- and how it ultimately can affect your own efforts.

Part of my incentive for Walking the Walk is to better my personal health, and that includes weight loss. I'm already on the road, but I've got plenty of work to do. Being at home all day -- I'm a work-from-home mom -- makes it a little harder for me. I've got 24-hour access to my refrigerator, and it's easy to find myself grazing when I'm not really hungry.

Counting calories might seem old-fashioned, but balancing calories in/calories out is key to maintaining or losing weight. Limiting calories is only one half of the equation, of course; exercise is essential too. This week, I'll count calories every day, recording them in a notebook on my kitchen counter.

Here's the disclaimer: I plan on doing a doctor-approved 1500 calories a day, which works for me at my weight and current activity level. This should get me to my goal weight, losing 1-2 pounds a week. Your mileage may vary. So if you decide to count calories at home, be sure to see some of the basic calculators in the Making it Work For You section of this post to determine how many calories you should be eating every day.

Welcome to Walking the Walk, a feature that takes a deeper look at commonly shared diet and fitness advice. Every other week, I'll choose one piece of advice and practice it for seven days. Then I'll report back on what I discovered about making it work in real life and how it affected my own personal fitness -- and how it ultimately can affect your own efforts.

My healthy habits took a slide this summer. Maybe more like a nosedive. Maybe even more like a quick, slippery dunk into the deep end of the junk-food pool. There's something about long days spent at the beach that makes me think more potato chips and chocolate cookies than fresh, green salads. This fall, I'm working hard to reclaim those healthy ways, one step at a time.

Though fruits and vegetables are always part of our daily diet at my house, I've caught myself frequently grabbing a simple bowl of cereal for breakfast or throwing together a sandwich for lunch, rather than slicing and chopping to add those delicious, nutritious fruits and veggies to my meals. Standard nutritional advice says that we should all be eating a minimum of five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day, a goal that can be difficult to reach unless you incorporate these nutritional powerhouses into every single meal and snack. This week, that's exactly what I'll do.

To prepare for the week, I made a quick run to the store today. I loaded up on some favorites -- cucumbers, colored peppers, watermelon, and fresh cantaloupe. In a couple of days, our CSA crate will arrive, full to the brim with tomatoes, kale, corn, salad greens, more cucumbers, green peppers, summer squash, and green beans. And a few days after that is our weekly trip to the farmer's market, where I can load up on more favorites like leeks, and those tiny little gold tomatoes we love so much. If there is ever a season to reacquaint yourself with fruits and vegetables, this is it.