Introducing The Move More Institute™

The Good Old Days?
Remember the carefree summer days of your childhood? You’d jump out of bed with enthusiasm, ready for whatever adventure presented itself. The world was full of possibility and so were you. You didn’t think twice about hopping on your bike to race to your best friend’s house. When you arrived, you’d kick off your shoes and run through the sprinkler until you were too hungry to continue. After a quick lunch, it was time to head to the park, usually until you were called home for dinner.

You didn’t have to think about your posture, proper knee alignment when bending your legs, shoes to support your weak arches, or range of motion in your joints. You just did what came naturally to you - you moved. A lot.


What About Now?
How’s your body feeling these days? Do you still jump out of bed and run around in your bare feet? Likely not - as most adults report some form of muscular and/or joint pain. When you stand up, how long does it take you to go from sitting to standing? Do you feel stiffness in certain joints as you get up? Your joints are seizing up from lack of lubrication - aka lack of movement. When you’re stiff, you move more slowly. And when you don’t have a spring in your step, you look and act ‘old’.
You don’t have to be old to move in a slower, stiff way. You just have to be inactive - i.e., mostly sedentary. Lack of physical movement is prematurely aging our society.

Are you a Sedentary Sam?

Are you a Fidget Finn?

Mostly Sedentary or Mostly Fidgeter?
Are YOU a Sedentary Sam or a Fidget Finn? The technical terms are “prolonger” and “breaker”. [1]
    prolonger: Someone who accumulates sedentary time in extended continuous bouts,
    breaker: Someone who accumulates sedentary time with frequent interruptions and in short bouts.

Those terms come to us from the Sedentary Behaviour Research Network. Think about that for a moment: our society has become so sedentary that researchers have had time to convene a worldwide research network to study us. I used to work in research and let me tell you, nothing happens fast. This problem has been years in the making. We’ve become a society of leisure-based, labour-saving technological slugs, and it’s killing us. Metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity are all on the rise.[2] A recent documentary entitled “Cholesterol: The Great Bluff” tackled the topic: in it, cardiologist Dr. Mikael Rabaeus proclaims, “Yet again, it’s a sedentary lifestyle that’s the killer.”[3]
How did this lifestyle change - this life of leisure - entrap us in bodies that are now failing us? It was a gradual process over the twentieth century and into our current times. The industrial revolution, followed by the current technological revolution, have given us many labour-saving devices. From dishwashers and garage door openers smartphones and online shopping, researchers have tracked an increase in obesity that correlates directly with an increase in the acquisition of labour-saving devices. [4]

The Move More Institute™: A N.E.A.T. Solution 
But it’s not too late to turn back the clock on your failing body. That’s why I created The Move More Institute™. It’s an initiative to promote healthy active living by adding more movement to individuals' daily lives. And it will help - it’s a N.E.A.T. solution! N.E.A.T. refers to Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis - the way our bodies expend energy that is not eating, sleeping, or your scheduled workout. [4, 5]

NEAT is different that your workout at the gym: “NEAT corresponds to all the energy expended with occupation, leisure time activity, sitting, standing, ambulation, toe-tapping, shovelling snow, playing the guitar, dancing, singing, washing, etc.” [5] Even if you do a daily one-hour workout, you still need to keep your body moving in other ways throughout the day. If not, you’re what’s referred to as an “active couch potato”. [2]
The Move More Institute™ nudges people to be more active throughout the day. Natural, non-exercise activity spread across your day. Every day.  I'm a fitness professional with a radical idea - don't exercise! Just move more!
Move More!
What can you do to keep yourself independent and living your life actively and without pain? Move your body. Add snacks of movement to your day:

• Rearrange your desk so you have to stand up and walk a little to reach your printer,
• Put your water bottle on a high shelf so you stretch to reach it, 
• Be less “efficient” at home - forget something upstairs so you climb the stairs again,
• Stressed out waiting for the elevator? Take the stairs. Don’t tell me it’s too many flights - start with a few flights and when you’re pooped, get on the elevator for the rest of the trip.

If you move more, you will feel better. Guaranteed.

References
1. Sedentary Behavior Research Network (SBRN) – Terminology Consensus Project process and outcome, Mark S. Tremblay, Salomé Aubert, Joel D. Barnes, Travis J. Saunders, Valerie Carson, Amy E. Latimer-Cheung, Sebastien F.M. Chastin, Teatske M. Altenburg, Mai J.M. Chinapaw and on behalf of SBRN Terminology Consensus Project Participants, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2017,14:75; https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-017-0525-8
2. Too Much Sitting and Metabolic Risk—Has Modern Technology Caught Up with Us?
David W Dunstan, Genevieve N Healy, Takemi Sugiyama, Neville Owen
European Endocrinology, 2010; 6:19-23; DOI: http://doi.org/10.17925/EE.2010.06.00.19
3. Cholesterol: The Great Bluff, 2017; http://tvo.org/video/documentaries/cholesterol-the-great-bluff
4. Levine, J.A. Nonexercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT): environment and biology, American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology & Metabolism. 10. 1152/ ajpendo. 00562. 2003 AJP - Endo May 1, 2004 vol. 286 no. 5 E675-E685
http://m.ajpendo.physiology.org/content/286/5/E675.full#F3
5. The Role of Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis in Human Obesity, Christian von Loeffelholz, 2004, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279077/
(endotext.org)