The Body Shop | Take a 3% walk
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I ran across a story about Dr. George Calver, the first doctor appointed to provide health care for the U.S. Congress back in 1928. And boy, did they need it — they were dying at a rate of 20 per year.
Calver preached moderation and healthyliving, and dispensed the kind of advice we are used to hearing these days: Eat wisely. Don’t worry. Relax completely. Exercise rationally. Get checkups by your doctor, and so on.
The thing that caught my eye in the story was this Calver quote: “Give 5 percent of your time to keeping well, so you won’t have to give 100 percent of your time getting over being sick.”
The quote intrigued me, and I started tinkering with it and applying it to our present-day health crisis. The first question I considered was, if I could persuade folks to devote 5 percent of their time to health maintenance, what would I advise them to do?
My first thought was walking. Good choice for most of the problems confronting our society, especially obesity.
Next question was how much is 5 percent of your time? If we assume a 16-hour waking day, that’s 960 total minutes, and 5 percent of that is 48 minutes. That’s probably asking too much of the everyday American, as busy as we are. OK, let’s go for a mere 3 percent. That equates to a shade less than 30 minutes. Perfect.
Everyone’s busy, but it’s hard to imagine not being able to spend just 3 percent of your total waking hours to promote your health. After all, you’d still have 97 percent of your waking hours to do all your other stuff, stuff that won’t promote your health, and very well may be harming it.
What’s that you say? You don’t have a block of 30 minutes? No problem. Split it up into two 15-minute bouts, or three 10-minute bouts. It’s still good for you. Next excuse?
In giving more thought to Calver’s quote, I came up with a modification: “Invest just 3 percent of your time walking, so you won’t spend 100 percent of your time regretting how fat you are.” A little corny, I know.
Do your body a favor
The medical literature is littered with research articles touting the benefits of walking. A daily walk can reduce the risk of the major chronic diseases in this country that cause us to live sicker and die quicker than almost all other industrialized nations.
For example, walking can cut the risk of heart disease and type 2diabetes by 60 percent. That’s quite a handsome return on investment, if you ask me — 3 percent gets you 60 percent.
If as little as 3 percent of our time spent walking can make us healthier, why do we resist? The too-busy excuse always pops up, but I think there’s more to it. Part of it may be our American work ethic. We are taught to work long and hard to reach our goals, so shouldn’t exercise be long and hard too?
That certainly was the message back when the book “Aerobics” burst onto the scene in 1968, emphasizing the need to jog and push yourself to higher and higher levels of fitness. That notion still persists 44 years later even though more than 90 percent of Americans rejected it, and research has demonstrated that moderate exercise like brisk walking has almost as many benefits as more intense exercise.
So, maybe part of our resistance is disbelief that something so simple as walking can be packed with such wonderful benefits. Please believe it. The evidence abounds and is irrefutable.
So get a comfortable pair of walking shoes and commit 3 percent of your time. You’re worth it, and your body will thank you in many ways.
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