Midweek odds and ends

Who's afraid of the big, bad gym?

Well you've weighed in on another poll question — five of you did, anyway — and here's the news: three out of the five said they feel comfortable in a gym.

Not that it's a good sample on which to base any kind of conclusion, but I'm glad to hear that more of you felt comfortable than not. People already manage to come up with enough reasons to skip exercise, and feeling intimidated or alienated at a gym should not be among them. There are plenty of gyms out there. If you're thinking about joining one, see if you can get a week's trial before signing any papers. Talk to other members. If you don't like what you see or feel, move on.

Thanksgiving update

My better half wasn't especially pleased with what I wrote here. It was my first post that she hasn't liked. Marge likes holidays a little better than I do, and she also thought I was being unfair to those who work hard to make a nice dinner for everyone else. That certainly wasn't my intention.

So, I just wanted to say thanks to my wonderful sister-in-law Mary. I really do appreciate all that you do. Your home is lovely and welcoming, and I'm thankful that there's a place for me at your table.

I had a good time this year, and for once I left the table feeling satisfied, but not stuffed.

The things women do

Another model has joined the long and sad list of casualties of the pursuit of physical "perfection." Solange Magnano, 38, a former Miss Argentina, died Sunday from complications experienced while she was undergoing elective cosmetic surgery to make her buttocks firmer. She leaves behind 7-year-old twins.

"A woman who had everything lost her life to have a slightly firmer behind," a friend, Roberto Piazza, told the Associated Press.

How sad indeed.

Poll: Fitness satisfaction lacking

Another Rhode to Fitness poll has concluded, and with 13 people responding, here's the verdict: 9 of you, or 69 percent, said that overall, you are not satisfied with your current level of fitness. The rest of you said you are satisfied.

When I first posted this poll, I mentioned that self-assessment can be a tricky thing. People are notoriously hard on themselves. I said, too, that satisfaction with one's state of fitness is highly dependent upon one's physical needs and goals. The couch potato isn't going to care about boosting his or her maximal oxygen uptake, and the marathon runner will never be satisfied until he or she crosses the finish line first.

For the sake of keeping this discussion focused, let's just assume that those of you who responded to the poll are neither hopelessly sedentary nor driven to perfection. For those of you who said you are not satisfied, my question is: Are you currently working to become fitter?

If you are not, what is stopping you? Lack of time is the reason most people give for not sticking with exercise, but I don't really buy that one. A mere half-hour a day of exercise can improve the health of previously sedentary individuals. Who among us couldn't find a "wasted" half-hour in every day that could be put to better use?

For those of you who are exercising, but are finding satisfaction with the results elusive, can you identify a reason for your plateau? Have you been doing the same exercise routine over and over for months or even years on end? Variety is crucial to maintaining interest and making progress. Have you been doing too much exercise? Exercising too hard and too frequently denies our bodies the rest they need to heal and rebuild, and can lead to overuse injuries that prevent us from exercising.

For those of you who are satisfied with your fitness level, congratulations and keep up the good work.

The latest poll results are in

Congratulations — you readers once again passed one of my highly unscientific and perpetually flawed polls with flying colors!

With a massive turnout this time of 11 voters, you showed that you're a well-rounded group when it comes to your motivation for exercise. Six respondents, or 54 percent, said they exercise mainly to improve their overall health, and two, or 18 percent, said their chief motivation was to gain strength. The other three reasons, weighing in with one vote, or 9 percent, each were: to lose weight, to improve physique and to improve cardiovascular endurance.

You obviously recognize that exercise can play an important role in enhancing the overall quality of your life and your health. I sometimes get a little annoyed at the way exercise is sold to the public primarily as a weight-loss vehicle. Sure, maintaining a healthy body composition is a big part of overall health, but exercise has so many more benefits than just reducing body fat.

So keep up the good work, and maybe someday I'll get a poll response that's big enough to be meaningful. In the meantime, I'm having fun trying — and fun can go a long way toward improving one's overall health, too.

The polling station is open again!

Yes, it's time to cast your vote in another scientifically unsound, but fun, Rhode to Fitness poll. When I last opened up this blog to an exercise in democracy, I learned that the vast majority of Rhode to Fitness readers (or, more accurately, all 18 of you who responded) were already a pretty active group. No surprise there, really.

This time I'm interested in hearing from you about why you exercise regularly. I'm sure there are some potential reasons I didn't include in the poll, such as that the guy or gal you've been chasing belongs to the gym, so therefore you must go, too. But I think I've included most of the reasons people usually cite for spending good time and money to work themselves into a disgusting sweat.

So have fun, and remember to vote early and often — oh wait, that isn't right, at least not in this precinct. No, you can only vote once, but please do stroll on over to the "booth" at top left.

And the winner of the poll is ... everyone!

The results are in from my highly unscientific poll intended to gauge whether my readers are gym rats or couch potatoes. Thanks to its poor design, I'll never know.

With a whopping 18 respondents, the breakdown was as follows: 8 people, or 44.5 percent, reported that they exercise daily, another 8 people (also 44.5 percent, for the math-impaired) reported exercising at least once a week, and 2 people, or 11 percent, said they exercise once a week. No one reported exercising only rarely.

Now I didn't define exercise for purposes of this poll, so for all I know, a half-hour of gardening was given as much weight by the respondents as a 60-minute sweat-fest on the elliptical trainer. But it really doesn't matter, because the point is, those of you who responded are active in some way, and that already puts you ahead of an estimated 40 percent of Americans who live a sedentary lifestyle.

In 1995, the American College of Sports Medicine released its "exercise lite" recommendations for adults. The guidelines were intended to educate the public about the health benefits of even moderate exercise, in recognition that a one-size-fits-all approach to exercise does not work. It turns out that for basic health benefits, you don't have to practically kill yourself at the gym for hours every day (if your goal is weight loss, however, you will have to work a little harder).

The guidelines were updated in 2007, in conjunction with the American Heart Association, and can be found in detail here.

For healthy adults under 65, the guidelines call for "moderately intense cardio 30 minutes a day, five days a week or vigorously intense cardio 20 minutes a day, three days a week, and 8 to 10 strength-training exercises, with 8 to 12 repetitions of each exercise, twice a week." For adults over 65, the cardio recommendations are the same, but the strength-training recommendations are adjusted slightly.

The cardio activity can be accumulated in bouts of at least 10 minutes each — not a huge time commitment when you think about it.

A study published in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion found that 67.5 percent of all adults reported watching TV or videos an average of two hours or more a day within the previous month, and 25.2 percent of adults reported using a computer outside of work an average of two hours or more a day. Cleary, Americans have some extra time, but prefer to sit on it.

A sedentary lifestyle has been shown to be a risk factor for obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other health problems. So let's get up and move!

Oh, and be on the lookout for further polls. They may not be scientific, but I think they're fun.