Cuerpo Aztlan

Saving Workouts for the Weekend

Sometimes, squeezing in a few walks or trips to the gym during the week is like wearing spandex -- you'd rather not. But can weekend exercise binges make up for it?

Depends on how healthy you are. If you have health-related risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or excess pounds to lose, burning the recommended 1,000 calories per week in just one or two exercise sessions doesn't appear to improve longevity. But spread that calorie-burning over four or five sessions during the week and you've got the makings of a longer, healthier life.

Exercise has short-term and long-term effects, but the short-term effects might be closely tied to the long-term benefits. For example, take a brisk walk and you'll immediately enjoy a lower systolic blood pressure. But that immediate benefit lasts for only a couple of hours. And if you walk only once a week -- whether it's for 20 minutes or 2 hours -- your heart is enjoying that short-term benefit just once a week. So long term, your health may not be impacted as much as if you'd walked every day.

Another example? Triglycerides. Exercise, and your triglycerides will be lower within a 24-hour period. Exercise every day and they'll be progressively lower after 4 days. But if you exercise just once on the weekend, you probably won't get the same cumulative benefits.

All of this may help explain why researchers recently determined that the mortality rates of weekend warriors -- men in the study who burned 1,000 calories in just one or two exercise sessions per week -- were not much different than the mortality rates of men who burned fewer calories.

One caveat: You may be able to get away with (that is, add years to your life) being a weekend warrior if you are in relatively good health. That means no risk factors, such as excess weight, a smoking habit, hypertension, or poor cholesterol values. But let's face it -- few of us fall into that charmed space. And keep in mind this additional interesting study fact: The weekend warriors tended to be heavier than the men in the other exercise groups. So spreading out your calorie-burning could mean less spreading elsewhere.


RealAge.com

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Maybe that's why I'm feeling a little better. I'll be off my feet for a day or so. So I'll have to get back at it as soon as my body is ready.

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Had a band meeting with the kids yesterday. Mezcla Experience no longer has Juan and Jaime as a regular members. They have "moved on" to hip hop. The girls are sticking with the band and another nephew is saying he wants to be in the band, but I'm wondering what that's about since he doesn't sing or play an instrument. He's the only one that said he wants to make music a career.

So I'll give them as much support as I can, but I told them I no longer buy people their equipment. We'll see how this goes. But it will be nice not to fight with any crappy attitudes at rehearsals anymore! The boys were more a pain than the girls as far as being moody, reluctant, etc.

I'm gonna chill for a little bit and then dive right back into it. The girls have been writing songs so I think we'll have some stuff ready by this summer but told them it would be OK to take a year before we started really going out to look for work and stuff.

KEEP WALKING!!!