Just standing may be an important component of total daily calories burned. A recent study showed that compared to lean women, obese women sat more and stood less.  They also spent half as much time moving around as the lean women. Still, the researchers calculated that if the obese women sat less, stood more, and doubled their weekly activity time, they could burn about 315 more calories a day. How can this be? One answer is obvious. Your body burns more calories standing than sitting. One-third more to be exact. That’s because the large muscles in your legs and back are

This is one of those “duh” stories.   In a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers reviewed the results of 26 studies in which pedometers or step counters were used. They found that using step counters was strongly associated with increases in physical activity. That is, people who used step counters increased their activity by over 2,000 steps compared to their own baseline level or compared to people who did not wear a step counter. In addition, using step counters was associated with reductions in body mass index (BMI), an indicator of body fatness, and

When somebody tells you to “take 10,” it usually means take a break from the task at hand for 10 minutes. There is a different, healthy take on this common command. For over 10 years, advocates for increasing physical activity have emphasized the importance of accumulating multiple, small bouts of physical activity over the day. This can be in addition to or a replacement for a single, longer exercise session.  New, updated physical activity guidelines suggest the length of the short bouts should be about 10 minutes per session to get health benefits. Instead of one 40-minute workout you could

When you go shopping, you start out with a certain amount of cash in your wallet (or ATM account!). Your goal? Get as much as you can for as little cash as possible. You’re hunting for bargains. When it comes to making food choices, you should be a “bargain” shopper, too. No, we are not talking about a grocery cart full of 99-cent Ramen noodles. The bargains we mean are “caloric bargains.” Think of your daily calorie allotment as the same as the money in your wallet. Each day, you only have a certain amount of calories you can “spend”

  If every person living in New York City chose a McDonald’s cheeseburger instead of a Big Mac for lunch today, they would save over 1.9 billion calories — IN ONE DAY! That’s equal to about 274 tons of body fat. No wonder the NYC public health department has legislated the listing of calorie counts on certain restaurant menus.  And just last week the legislation was upheld after the New York State Restaurant Association sued to stop it.  Read a press release.   While this is a great step, we argue that this is only part of the solution. The other part is that

  Welcome to the Stand Up(more) & Eat(better) blog. This blog is produced by Cooper Institute staff because we are passionate – and knowledgeable – and opinionated – about helping people attain calorie balance through active living and health eating. A couple of times a week you’ll see posts on practical information related to: cutting down on fats getting portions right-sized really thinking about what you are eating (yikes!) moving more creating opportunities for healthier living in your home, neighborhood, community, state, nation, and world   and other calorie balance topics We'll also give our two cents on latest research findings, government policies,