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There is no way around it, I run a lot of miles, at least relative to the general population.
4 to 5 days a week, 40 to 50 miles per week.
There is no question that running is a huge part of why I am in the shape I am in.
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But I don’t think that is the whole story.
Yes, diet has a lot to do with it, but truth be told, I sincerely believe that it is the work I do away from the road, the treadmill or the dining table that makes an impact on how fit I am.
No, I am not talking about the elliptical, or the core workouts, or the stretching sessions.
I am talking about the hidden mini-workouts that can occur anywhere, for anyone, at anytime.
These workouts don’t make me break a sweat. In fact, I hardly am aware that I am doing them. The only thing they require is that I take an extra 30 – 60 seconds while going about my every day business.
Whether it’s parking a little further away from the grocery store, or walking up to my daughter’s room instead of yelling up to her; whether it’s going up and down stairs with a little extra pop or just taking the stairs instead of an escalator or elevator – these extra steps add up over the course of a day – burning a few more calories here and there. Is it enough to get INto shape? No, BUT, it IS enough to get the blood flowing through your limbs and get them used to the idea of movement. If you think about moving on a regular basis, you are that much closer to actually doing it. The hardest part of getting off the couch is, you guessed it, getting off the couch. Inertia is one of the most powerful laws in the universe. If you are constantly at rest, you will, in all likelihood, stay at rest. That’s physics.
But if you start small and slowly build, you can develop into a fast flying, calorie burning machine.
A long time ago, completely unrelated to running, I felt like I was in a rut and going nowhere. My mother said to me, “look at your feet.” She correctly took my silence on the phone to be confusion. She then continued, “when you are climbing a mountain, if you are constantly looking at the peak, you won’t be able to see your progress very well. You may well feel like you are spinning your wheels. But take a moment and look at your feet. Look at the distance they are covering with every step.”
It was an “a-ha!” moment in my life.
It’s the same with these mini-hidden-workouts – start small…look at the feet, see the progress. Eventually the regular workouts have to and will come. Inertia will make it so.
Run Luau Run 
great post, I feel the same way. I started small I didn’t start taking 5 classes a week I would have thought it was too hard and woud have quit. That is the key start small and work your way up!
Wow! Now I see where you get it from! Your Mom is a sharp lady!
as I often say, apple/tree Luau…..you are surrounded by incredibly smart women. know what that makes you? a smart man:)
Go C’s………
You’re right. There is statistics that back you up as well.
Dan Buettner is a man who has studied people who lived to be over a
100 more than anyone. In a TED talk speech he gave he described the
charactertistics of people who lived to be over a 100. He concluded
that, “none of them exercise, at least they way that we think of
exercise. Instead, they setup their lives so that they are
constantly nudged into physical activity. These 100-year old
Okinawan women are getting up and down off the ground, they sit on
the floor, 30 or 40 times a day. Sardinians live in vertical
houses, up and down stairs. Every trip to the store, or to church
or to a friends house occasions a walk. They don’t have any
conveniences. There is not a button to push to do yard work or
house work. If they want to mix up a cake they are doing it by
hand. That’s physical activity. That burns calories just as much as
the treadmill does.”
http://blog.ted.com/2010/01/06/how_to_live_to/
I am gonna have to look up that talk on TED.
Having been without running for 6 weeks now (and really without cross training for the past two), I’ve become more sensitive to the balance of ins and outs calorie wise. I’ve been using a calorie tracker and assumed I was a “lightly active” person, as I have a desk job. When I did cross train or strength train, I would mark those as extra potential calories for the day. To my surprise, despite generally hitting my calorie goals for the day (I am not really out to lose weight, just maintain), I’ve lost 3 lbs. since I stopped running.
Perhaps it’s the carryover of higher metabolism from running as much as I did. But I rather think it’s the fact that, when I’m not at work, I rarely sit still. With 3 small boys, most of the evenings and weekends are spent chasing them down, then there’s the late night and early morning housework that needs done.
Bottom line – I agree 100% that little things like you mention go a long way towards setting someone on the path to better weight management. It takes both diet and exercise to get there – but both are easier than you first think.