Approximate number of calories burned in 1 hour, by weight of the person.

If you weigh less, you need more vigorous activity or more time than a heavier person to burn the same number of calories (because your body doesn’t have to work as hard as a heavier person’s body). You can do more with fewer calories! The good news is that as you lose weight, you can do any activity longer, and you can do more vigorous activities, before you get tired.

If you weigh more, you need less vigorous activity or less time than a lighter person to burn the same number of calories (because your body has to work harder than a lighter-weight person). You need more calories to do any activity! The good news is that you can burn more calories, and burn them faster, doing the same activities as a lighter-weight person.

For Example: a 180-pound person burns about 279 calories an hour by walking at a casual 2.5 miles per hour. A 130-pound person would need to walk a very brisk 4.0 miles per hour for nearly an hour to burn the same number of calories!

If you eat a Snickers candy bar: Compare the calories used for these activities to the calories of a Snickers candy bar. A Snickers bar has about 274 calories. The sections in yellow are less than the calories of a Snickers bar. You can do those activities for an entire hour and not still “work off” one Snickers!

Students feeling a little sluggish? Got the post-lunchtime slumpers? Sitting down for more than 20 or 30 minutes? Try these quick exercises. Not only will you get your heart rate back up but also you will stimulate your metabolism, get some endorphins flowing, burn calories, and get your self ready to concentrate on whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing. Try one of these once every hour.

These are fun and easy activities for kids. Kids don’t get to move enough, so give them a quick break a couple times in the morning and a couple times in the afternoon. Put the name of each activity on a card or slip of paper. Conceal them in a box and let a child pick one at random. Whatever the child picks, everyone does…even the teacher! Then use the activity as part of your academic lessons.

For example…

• Language Arts: Research and prepare a brief report on heart rate.
• Math: Find out your average stride length and use it to estimate the perimeter of a building. Then, draw the shape of the building and calculate the area.
• Science: Find out why some objects seem heavier when held farther away from the torso. And why do people have to breathe more when they are exercising?
• History: How do calisthenics differ now from 100 years ago? (And they do…a lot!)
• Social Studies: Debate why people in some places get more exercise than in other places, e.g., rural communities vs. town and cities.

Don’t think you have enough time for a quick exercise break because you have too many things to teach kids? Well, you’re wrong. If kids are inactive, sluggish, or simply sitting too long, their ability to learn ANYTHING decreases. A quick burst of activity helps students learn more and be more engaged in the lesson.

 2-Minute Exercises

1. Running Jacks: Jumping jacks are always a good standby. Combine this with “cartoon” running, running in place just as fast as you can! 20 seconds of each, alternating for 2 minutes.

2. Big Walk: Can you get all the way around the classroom in 2 minutes using your longest stride possible? Really stretch those legs for huge steps! How many steps did you take to get all the way around?

3. Foot Pass: Every other kid grabs a ball, or anything of moderate size, between his feet, and then using only his feet, holds it out for the next kid to grab…with his feet, too! Then the object is passed on. Try this with kids in a circle and half as many objects as kids. This way, every kid is either passing or receiving objects.

4. Potty Squats: Kids stand in front of their chairs, arms straight out in front of them, back straight. Sloooowly they sit down, arms still out and back still straight. Give them a 5 second count to lower all the way to the chair. Then, sloooowly the get back up with another 5 second count. Can they keep doing this for a whole 2 minutes?

 5. Planking and Cranking: Toes to the floor, elbows and forearms on the floor, and hold your body as straight as possible for 30 seconds. Then, roll over on your back and put your legs up in the air. Touch your feet, and then roll back into the planking position. It’s harder than it sounds.

6. Elephant Migration: Walking on all fours–hand and feet to the ground, knees as straight as possible. One kids gets to be the boss elephant, and other kids follow him or her. Try going to the library this way. Don’t forget to make elephant sounds!

7. Crabwalk: Walking on all fours…upside down: Belly up, butt towards the floor. The teacher (or a student) calls out a location, such as the teacher’s desk or the hallway door, and all the kids crabwalk there.

8. Double-trouble Butterflies: Kids lie on their backs, knees up in the classic sit-up position. They raise their feet off the ground, heels together, and flutter them like butterflies for 10 seconds. Feet back down, they raise their arms in the air, palms touching. Kids raise their shoulders off the ground, reach high, and flutter their hands like butterflies. 10 seconds, then back to feet. Use longer intervals for older kids. Can they do both at once?

Keep Kids Moving

Some of these are better for younger kids, say elementary through mid school. And their quick. How about a couple of things you can do to get kids moving throughout the day (or class period). The point is to keep kids moving. Moving bodies produce learning minds.

No desk day: This will keep kids moving ALL DAY (ok, maybe 1/2 the day, or maybe a class period for older kids). Spend a day with no desks, no tables, no chairs. Want to work on something? Lower yourself to the floor. Want to ask the teacher something? Get up off the floor and ask!

Walking/Running quizzes: When your students are taking a quiz, give everyone the first question out loud. Then, each time a student completes the answer, he or she needs to come to get the next one from you, where ever you are in the classroom. The student says, “I need question number …,” and you provide it. The student goes back to his or her desk, responds to the question, and then returns for the next one. It will help if you have the questions on individual slips of paper so you can show or give just one question at a time. For more fun, more exercise, and lots of giggles, combine this with “Big Walk,” “Crab Walk,” or “Elephant Walking.”  Try this in the gymnasium or some other big space, with you on one side and the kids on the other.

Have fun and KEEP MOVING!

Here are 3 super simple things you can do to improve your health and happiness.

5 Minutes of Joy

Happiness makes you healthier. Although happiness is a worthwhile goal in itself, it also produces health benefits. Five minutes each day in a state of undistracted happiness improves your endorphin production, which enhances your physical fitness, mental functioning, and immune response. Happiness is also linked to better heart health and increased life expectancy.

The reason for these benefits is not fully known, but the medical community in general has long known that a feeling of happiness lowers your level of cortisol, the stress hormone. Among other effects, cortisol increases your blood pressure, decreases your immune function, decreases your ability to learn and remember, and leads to weight gain. What the 5 Minutes of Joy allow you to do is release the ongoing stress and anxiety that cause cortisol to build up in your blood stream.

If your 5 minutes includes laughing, even better. Not only does laughter decrease cortisol levels but also it stimulates your lymph system through diaphragm movement, thus helping your body to remove toxins!

Whether through focusing on happy memories, taking nature walks with friends, listening to music, praying or meditating, or even watching funny movies, get your 5 Minutes of Joy.

2 Every 20

Sitting down and being inactive for long periods of time is bad for you. Many people try to combat their inactive lifestyle by spending time at the gym or scheduling a period of sustained physical activity, such as walking in the mornings. These are good practices, but they are insufficient for maintaining good heart health. For a strong heart, you need to fight gravity on an ongoing basis, which means standing up and moving.

Dr. Vernikos, former NASA Life Sciences division director, has shown that sitting down for long periods is akin to being in a weightless environment (i.e., outer space). Exercising for 30 minutes 1 time daily will not produce the same benefit as getting up and moving around 30 times a day because it does not give your body the perpetual motion it needs to optimize health. Among other benefits, regular movement stimulates lymph activity, improves blood flow, maintains muscle structure, and reduces the risk and effects of diabetes type II and heart disease.

Vernikos’s recommendation: Every 20 minutes, get up and move around for 2 minutes. For example, stand up when talking on the phone, lose your TV remote control, and step out into the sunshine.

Expose Yourself to the Sun

Regardless of all the worry and concern about skin cancer, your body is designed to require sunlight. Your skin synthesizes vitamin D, an essential vitamin, from ultraviolet radiation, particularly UVB. Vitamin D3 seems to regulate the function of more than 1,000 genes that affect every cell in your body. Among other benefits, vitamin D3 improves calcium absorption (decreasing the risk and effects of osteoporosis) and immune system function. Without sufficient vitamin D3, your body is at increased risk for a wide variety of health problems.

The primary way to ensure you have enough vitamin D3, the way your body is designed to get vitamin D3, is to get sufficient sun exposure. Light-skinned people who expose 40% of their skin to sunlight for one-half hour can produce 50,000 units of vitamin D3, 10 times more than high-potency supplements and 50 times more than regular-strength supplements!

If you are worried about skin cancer, wear sunscreen. Sunscreen may limit the amount of UVB that reaches into the skin, but it may also allow you to stay in the sun longer while limiting skin damage. For those most worried about skin cancer and skin damage from excessive exposure, don’t get a lot of exposure at once. Short periods multiple times, around 10 minutes, will produce the same benefits in terms of vitamin D3 production.

Sunlight exposure has many other benefits beyond vitamin D3 production, notably melatonin production. Early morning exposure to sunlight causes the pineal gland to produce melatonin earlier in the evening. Melatonin, which is only produced in darkness, helps you sleep, fight infection, lower inflammation, and defend against cancer and the potentially harmful effects of UV radiation on the skin.