mum's activity level

[taurushead]

hi guys :love:

my mum's really..unhealthy. and she was told she had to become moderately active. what counts as moderately active?! She seems to think walking for an hour a day and sitting down the rest of the day counts. is that enough? im worried :dizzy:
x

[taurushead]

i went into a calorie counter and the difference in calorie intake between sedentary and moderate was 400. doesn't that mean to be counted as 'moderately active' you need to be burning about 400 extra calories a day?!?!? that seems 'very active' to me. im confused.
sooo confused. i tried to figure this out regarding myself a while ago and gave up and just did what i wanted. but when its my mum, im more concerned.
how can the difference between sedentary and moderate be 400 if its just an hours walking? rahhhhhhh

[Earthly Delight]

Walking (not strolling, but a good brisk walk) for an hour every day would certainly count as moderately active in my books! Especially if she also does something like light gardening, cleaning the house, etc. for an hour or two daily.

Try reading this http://www.womanjunction.com/topic/fitness/walking/ and this http://www.fitness-walking.ipcor.com/Calories%20burnt%20walking.html (I like this one's way of calculating calories burnt walking more, as it takes weight into account)

Note: the reason for the 400 increase has to do with the input weight (obviously the heavier you are, the more you burn by walking as you've got more to lug around) and the fact that as you become more active your muscles develop more, so your resting calorie consumption is higher. I wouldn't trust those things too too much though; after all they have to assume when you put in a weight what percent of you is fat and what percent is muscle, etc.

I think its great that she's getting herself active and walking daily!!! Definately healthy! :)

[taurushead]

thanks for the advice. i worry , is all. i don't want to be a daughter who nags her but i love her and i don't want her to get sicker. but yeah, good advice :) thanks heaps !

[Eco_Jihadist]

AAAHH! This is such a similar scenario to my parents.....

They're so lazy its unbelievable, and the amount of daft excuses they come up with for not doing exericise is phenominal, and the worst thing is they've wasted ages of my time asking me to give them exericse plans and going through it with them and then not doing them, and coming up with some BS reasons like they were busy, even though it was only about 30 minutes 6 time a week max.

and like all lazy people they just wont do anything remotely intense they're just like 'yea but i went for a one mile walk last week' and when asked to run because that actually works they'll just be like

'yea we're old an unfit so we need to build up to it,' though their idea of building up to it is turning a skippping rope like 20 times a month and walking a hundred metres a week, it makes me so undescribably pissed of!!!!!

[Bios]

Walking at 3.5 to 4 miles an hour (which is at the high end of comfortable walk pace) for an hour will burn about 400 calories for a midsized adult, and is considered moderately active. If she's motoring along on her walk, she should be ok.

If she's not, you might want to walk with her and pick up the pace rather than just telling her to. It's 'powdered butt syndrome'.... people really don't tend to take advice, particularly health advice, from someone whose butt they've powdered. Not that people are very good about following other people's nagging about exercise anyway.