GetGoing NC!

Playground Boot Camp

“I oughta be doing that with you,” the moderately overweight mom who was watching her son yelled.
“We’re starting a class in April,” Polly Eslinger yelled back. “You’re welcome to join us.”
Eslinger’s response seemed to surprise the woman: We were on Cary’s Middle Creek Park Playground at the time, six grown-ups mixed among  kids cavorting on [...]

Walking the walk at lunch

April 28 is National Walk@Lunch Day. I could have sworn it was today.
I had the lunch shift down at the rickshaw plant and I knew right off I was in trouble. All along downtown Raleigh’s Fayetteville Street, along key side streets, and on up to the state government complex all I could see was a [...]

Do This, Not That: Timing your workouts

Jean Hagen-Johnson of Raleigh runs three days a week, 52 weeks a year, and always at 6 a.m. She runs during milkman hours not necessarily because she’s a morning person or because she savors the tranquility of a city yet to wake. Her reason is more pragmatic.
“Nothing interrupts a 6 a.m. run,” says Hagen-Johnson. “Do [...]

Exercise: eases ‘chronic’ anxiety (and whatever you do, don’t stop)

A review of 40 studies of the effects of exercise on people with chronic illnesses concludes that working out eases anxiety over what ails you. Scientists from the University of Georgia, in a report in the Feb. 22 Archives of Internal Medicine, found that exercise alleviates anxiety in sufferers of heart and circulatory issues, fibromyalgia, [...]

With exercise, is enough ever enough?

Jeff in Portland, Ore., writes: “Arrgghh . . . And just when I thought my 3 to 4 times per week of hitting the gym was an extraordinary feat. The recommendations from this study seem to support a growing consensus among researchers that ‘more is better’ when it comes to exercise.”
The study Jeff refers to [...]

Do This, Not That: Bypass the carpool lane

This is the third in an occasional series on seemingly small acts of physical activity that can, over time, have a surprising impact on your life. So far, GGNC  has looked at taking the stairs vs. the elevator and watching TV on an exo ball rather than hunkered down in a La-Z-Boy. Today: Avoiding the [...]

Cold weather exercise, exercised moms and who exercises most

Enjoy this tease of warm weather; After Tuesday we’re back to highs in the 40s, lows in the 20s.  According to Gary Sforzo, a professor of exercise and sports sciences at Ithaca College in New York, the return of cold weather shouldn’t deter you from exercising.
“If you are concerned about hypothermia, you don’t need to [...]

Do This, Not That: Watch TV on a ball, not in a chair

This is the second in an occasional series on seemingly small acts of physical activity that can, over time, have a surprising impact on your life. Last week GGNC looked at taking the stairs vs. the elevator. Today: Watching TV on an exo ball rather than hunkered down in a La-Z-Boy.
Over the next 13 days [...]

Fitness pioneer Fred Morrison

A pioneer of American fitness whose simple invention may have made more people healthy than any other device died Tuesday at his home in Utah. Walter Fredrick “Fred” Morrison, who was 90, invented the Frisbee.
Morrison first got the idea for a flying disc tossing tin cake pans on the beach with his wife, Lu. After [...]

Let’s Move the toddlers

Wondering what you can do as part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move program to stop the super-sizing of our kids? If you have preschoolers, you can do three things according to a study to be published in the March Pediatrics.

Eat dinner as a family (at the table, not on TV trays assembled in [...]