Diabetes Expo

Today I went to a Healthy Living Diabetes Expo put on by my local chapter of the Canadian Diabetes Association. Dr. Amy Latimer was the guest speaker; her topic was It's all in the plan: Tips for planning and achieving an active lifestyle. She was a great speaker, and so I wanted to share some of the highlights of her talk.

Depending on who you talk to, there are different guidelines for how much exercise is needed per week. The current standard that Dr. Latimer cited was 150 minutes of aerobic exercise a week, along with resistance (strength) training 2-3 days a week. According to other sources than the one she quoted, 300 minutes of aerobics are recommended. Either way you're looking at a lot of aerobic exercise a week.

She then gave five tips for getting more active:

1) Always look on the bright side. This one involves thinking of the benefits of exercising, such as less stress and more energy, not the negatives of not exercising. Research supports this: negative and nagging messages demotivate people.

2) Make it enjoyable. You're more likely to exercise if you like what you're doing. Add music, friends, or whatever else to make being active fun. She also cited some research that found people with dogs are way more active.

3) Plan when, where and what activities you are going to do. This was the most important of her five tips. Apparently people with a plan are way more likely to successfully carry out their planned exercise.

4) Plan for obstacles. While a plan is important, being aware of possible obstacles and how to deal with them can be just as important. What will you do if it rains, or your mp3 player breaks? Planning ahead for such scenarios can get you out even when your original plan fails.

5) Expect success . . . most of the time. It's easy to get off schedule and easy to stay off schedule. But get back to it! As a help, remember all the positive benefits, and don't worry: everyone gets derailed sometimes.

I hope you will find those tips as helpful as I did! Thanks for an excellent talk, Dr. Latimer!