Sitting is the New Smoking and I'm Breaking the Habit

According to David Suzuki, an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster known for his ability to explain the complexities of the natural sciences in a compelling, understandable manner, the more we connect to nature, the smarter, healthier and happier we are. In fact, he claims getting outside even makes us nicer and more likely to clean up the planet. Unfortunately, most of us spend more than 90 per cent of our days indoors, away from nature.

I recently discovered just how inactive I was/am when I got a device called a FitBit. It tracks steps taken, stairs

climbed, miles walked, calories burned and sleep. Health guides tell us to aim for 10,000 steps a day and on an average day, I only take 4,000 - 5,000. In fact, in the three months I have had this device I have only hit the 10,000 step mark twice and both of those instances where when I took a walk outdoors. 

I spend pretty much all my life in doors. I wake up, get dressed, drive to my office building, work at a desk or sit around a conference table for 8 hours, walk to the parking garage, get in my car, drive home, sit at the dinner table, play on the family room floor or lounge on the couch and then lie down in bed. 

Acoording to the David Suzuki Foundation, SITTING IS THE NEW SMOKING! 

I am not alone. On average, North Americans spend 9.3 hours a day sitting. Researchers conclude that this unprecedented level of inactivity is causing 5.3 million deaths per year – a similar level of mortality to smoking. Getting active outdoors is a simple but effective remedy. 

I don't breathe fresh air except for maybe 4 minutes a day. I am more sedentary than I have ever been. At a time when I am trying to lose 40 pounds. So I am joining two challenges and observing a self-motivated challenge to help me get exercise and get some fresh air. 

First, I am joining in the 30x30 challenge to get outside for 30 minutes a day every day for 30 days in May. This may be during the workday with two 15 minute brisk walks outside, before work taking my dog out in the early morning hours, or afterwork playing with my kids in our yard. 

Second, I am taking the couch-to-5K challenge. I started

yesterday with the training app which leads me in alternating running and walking, increasing the running portion incrementally each week. In 8 weeks, I shoudl be ready to run a 5K - an illusive goal of mine for a while.

Lastly, I am trying to hit 10,000 steps and 10 flight of stairs every day. My activities to meet the two challenges above will surely help me reach this goal. 

I want to be an example to my kids so that they will enjoy being outside and having fun. When I was little, I was always outside exploring. I need to provide a safe environment for them to do the same. So I resolve to get my family out of the cave and to embrace the sun! (or even the rain). How about you?

Spring Break Reading

My family and I just returned from a week in Florida. Time at the beach and swimming in the canal and relaxing as much as you can with little people running around. We had a great time together. I even got a little reading in.


My first book was a nice fiction novel called Scent of Lilacs by Ann Gabhart. Set in 1964 in small-town Kentucky, its heroine, Jocie Brooke, is a curious preteen who digs up life-altering answers to questions about her family. It's a delightful coming of age novel with mystery, suspense and innocence wrapped into one.

I'd definitely recommend putting a copy in your beach bag. Available March 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Meanwhile, here is some Spring Break fun!

40 years of Mobile Connectivity, We've Come A Long Way

Recently, we gave in and got our oldest a smart phone. We have questioned, is she is ready for the responsibility? We have worried it, would open her up to unnecessary dangers? We have reasoned, it will keep us connected as she ventures into her teenage years. I find it fitting that today marks the 40th anniversary of the very first cell phone.

Well, that makes the cell phone older than me by a few months, which is difficult to believe. And no, the first cell phone was not made by Apple but by Motorla, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x. It weighed 2.5 pounds, had a one-line LED display, and cost nearly $4,000 with a battery life of just 20 minutes!

Cell technology did not hit my house until the mid-to-late 1980s when my mom, who was a real estate appraiser and traveled alone in the car often, got her first car phone. It was the size of a shoe box and had a cord attached to the receiver. It sat on the center consul of her Nissan Maxima, which later became my car.

Even as a young professional in the mid 1990s, cell phones were not prevalent. I was

given a pager at my first real PR job and back in 1999, at my current company, we had two company cell phones that we could check out when needed for travel or events, otherwise we all had pagers. When we got paged, we had to stop and find a pay phone to answer the call. Today, my daughter would not know what a pager is and we'd be hard-pressed to find a pay phone anywhere.

Eventually, we all got cell phones. Those little Motorola flip phones. And I was among the first of my colleagues to get a smart phone. It was an HP Pocket PC and I loved it! I could write word documents, email, see my calendar. It was a organization-freak's dream! I guess that little device began my love affair with smart phone technology. Since that time, I have had numerous devices including Blackberries and every edition of the iPhone (my current love). It is a rare occasion that my iPhone or iPad are not close by my side (though I really do try to disconnect for some time each evening).

I wonder now, how my parents got along with three kids- two of them boys- without a cell phone (or even a pager) to keep connected. I guess they trusted them to be where they said they would be. Now we can track our kids by the cell GPS.

With talk of apple coming out with iWatch, where all the mobile technology would be available on a device small enough to wear on our wrist, and of Google developing augmented reality glasses, it is unimaginable where technology will take us in the next 40 years. I can guess I know one thing, I'll be on board for the ride. So, thanks to Marty Cooper, who made it possible for that first call to be made, you have changed our world completely!