Blog changes

Thanks to everyone who followed Training Because I Can! over the last nine years. This blog started with Addison's Disease, hypothyroidism and a crazy idea of doing an Ironman distance triathlon. My life has changed and so has this blog. I am using this blog strictly for Addison's Support topics from here on out. I hope to continue providing people with hints for living life well with adrenal insufficiency.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Attitude Toward Everyday Activity Important for Healthy Lifestyle


Attitude Toward Everyday Activity Important for Healthy Lifestyle

ScienceDaily (Apr. 3, 2010) — Unintentional physical activity may be influenced by non-conscious attitudes, noted David Conroy, associate professor of kinesiology and human development and family studies. The challenge of encouraging more activity can be met by understanding the motivation behind both deliberate exercise and inherent behaviors.
"If you aren't in the habit of being physically active, you can run out of energy trying to force yourself to do it everyday," said Conroy. "But if you can make physical activity habitual, being active becomes a lot easier."
Efforts to increase physical activity are at the forefront of public health research because the benefits of a healthy lifestyle go far beyond physical and mental well-being. However, the majority of these efforts focus on explicit motivation -- external factors that lead to a change in behavior. Explicit motivation can include following the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' recommendation for 150 minutes of aerobic activity throughout the week, or making plans with a friend to start a weight-loss program.
But explicit motivational processes are often unsuccessful in causing changes that people can easily maintain long-term.
Conroy, along with Shawna Doerksen, assistant professor of recreation, park and tourism management; Amanda Hyde, graduate student in kinesiology; and Nuno Ribeiro, graduate in recreation, park and tourism management, examined 200 college students for a connection between physical activity and level of unintentional activity.
"It wasn't the overall level of activity we focused on, it was specifically the unintentional activity -- those little things that you don't even think about that help you burn those extra few calories," said Conroy.
Their results, published in the April issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine, show a positive correlation between individuals who have a positive attitude about physical activity and those who performed more unintentional physical activity, such as climbing stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, or walking further to the store because of parking in the first available spot rather than searching for a closer space.
The researchers measured the students' unexpressed attitudes towards exercise with a common psychological test that uses words or pictures to trigger a person's automatic response. The computer-based test requires categorization of a stimulus, in this case a type of physical activity, with words that are either "good" or "bad." The faster a person associates a pairing as either good or bad, the more strongly they connect those two things in their memory.
Conroy and Doerksen also used questionnaires to determine the amount of physical activity the students predicted they would get during the week. The amount varied, depending on how active students were in their social group or the outcomes they expected from physical activity.
The researchers fit each student with a pedometer to calculate the total activity he or she experienced during one week. The amount of unintentional activity is estimated by adjusting total activity scores to account for people's intentions to be active.
"We're trying to follow this up now by looking at a broader range of populations," said Conroy. There are major differences in what motivates young adults, mid-life adults or parents, and older adults who may have physical limitations, he noted.
The researchers are now exploring whether there are ways to promote or encourage physical activity without a person knowing it.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Signs of Spring

Spring is coming, here are some signs...
Snow is thinning...Grand Teton is the big, pointy one.



Sign along Pine Creek Pass. Do people in other places have this sign?



A drainage pipe that made a pretty ice sculpture with some spring run off.



Still three feet of snow on the good trails.



Beautiful view, I ran up and down this road today.



Spring IS coming, Pine Creek is melting out!



Snow plows knock over signs during the winter, the signs melt out in the spring.




Definite sign of spring, snowmobilers, desperate for the last ridable snow, ride on the highway and muddy shoulder in an effort to get to the trails.



Joanne and Bridger on the road up to Targhee. Hardly any snow left.



Horsecicles on Salty.



A sure sign of spring is that we were brave enough to leave the Valley and go to Boise. We ran with Allison at Table Rock. Look, bare legs!!!




Me standing in the bucket of an excavator in a quarry. The bucket was HUGE!



OK, maybe gross but a little cool. This is the skeleton of a Trumpeter Swan. It was enormous. It's wing was at least 3 fee long and it's foot was the length of my palm.