In a country where there are more homes with televisions than with indoor plumbing, it’s not difficult to understand why more than 70 million Americans are overweight. The Couch Potato is a widely-recognized term for the lazy, overweight man who spends most of his free time sitting on the couch, drinking a beer, and watching T.V. Now, studies are finding that being a couch potato is even worse for your health than smoking-and we”ve all known since elementary school how bad smoking is. Learn what you can do to break away from this bad habit and keep your New Year’s Resolution to lose weight.

Chicken and Beer

Studies suggest that food advertising on T.V. has a direct impact on the quality and quantity of what we eat. Are we really surprised then to see a couch potato with a beer in one hand, a bucket of fried chicken in the other, and a crumpled bag of chips on the floor? The first step to breaking away from the couch potato lifestyle is to turn off the T.V. Don’t let the advertisers affect your eating choices; they want to keep you on the couch! Cut back on the refined sugars, sodas, candy, snacks, fried foods, beer, and general junk. Eliminating these from your diet and replacing them with proteins, fruits, and veggies will have a big impact on your energy, and will get you moving toward better overall health.

Get Off the Couch

You may think you are just too old for exercise; shrug off this excuse! At 40, 50, even 60, you can still reduce your heart disease risks by becoming active. Studies have found that couch potatoes who began exercising even after age 40 lowered their risk of coronary heart disease by 55% compared to those who still did not exercise. Now is the best time to take charge of your health! Some tips to get you off the couch:

• Walking is one of the best ways to start being active again. You can join or start a walking program, and make use of your community’s scenic trails.
• Find creative ways to incorporate more walking into your day to day life; for example, park your car as far from the entrance as possible, and take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Couch Potato Exercise

Another common excuse couch potatoes defend themselves with is the idea that “there’s just no time to fit in exercise.” But of course, there’s always time for that Very Special Episode. Couch potatoes put off exercise for 20 or 30 years until something serious happens to their health; but by then, it may be too late. In this vein, on-the-couch workout programs have been devised to help set the couch potato in motion:

• First, walk around a little to get your blood pumping. You don’t want to exercise cold muscles, so 5 minutes of walking and stretching should be a sufficient warm up.
• Next, grab a few light weights, or since being a couch potato means you probably don’t own any, a few water bottles or a small dog will do. Be sure to set aside drinking water too.
• Work out in fluid motions. To up the fun factor, approach the workout like it’s a drinking game; every time Simon says “awful,” you do a push up. Fun!
• Next, it’s up to you. Run in place, do jumping jacks, lift your weights, run downstairs and switch out the laundry, play tug of war with your dog, do some lunges and squats. Just keep moving!

Going to Extremes

In a drastic effort to combat couch potato culture, UK researchers have developed The Exten Fitness System. Using a high-tech motorized chair, this system gives a safe all-body workout to couch potatoes who are too unfit to exercise normally. You may want give jumping jacks a try first before you splurge though.

Get a jump start on your personal weight loss program today.

Sources:
http://media.www.beaconnewspaper.com/media/storage/paper540/news/2003/10/14/Sports/Couch.Potato.Workout.Takes.Care.Of.Daily.Exercise.Requirement-527026.shtml
http://www.potatomuseum.com/exCouch.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couch_potato
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/03/whart03.xml
http://walking.about.com/od/hearthealth/a/heart0706.htm