The Amish people have remarkably good health and longevity and therefore make good subjects for health studies. For example, the rate of obesity in the Amish community is 4% versus 68% in the general population. Yet the Amish eat basically whatever they want—meat, potatoes, full-fat dairy products, cakes and pies—about 4,000 calories a day for the average person.

There are similar disparities in the rates of other serious health problems like heart disease and cancer, which indicate that the Amish lifestyle may provide some health lessons for the rest of us.

Researchers believe doing things “the old fashioned way” has a lot to do with their excellent health. Their food is raised or grown naturally and minimally processed and without “modern conveniences” like electricity, cars and tractors, Amish people are almost 10 times more physically active than the average non-Amish American.

Most Americans only walk a few thousand steps toward the recommended 10,000 steps a day, but Amish men take an average of 18,000 steps and women take 14,000 steps. And that’s just walking! Imagine farming and maintaining a household with only human or animal power to plow fields, wash clothes, chop wood, and on and on.

When you compare the traditional Amish lifestyle to the rest of the modern world you begin see that technology has eliminated the need for most physical movement, leaving many of us sedentary. As we discussed in another blog post, our desk jobs are killing us.

While we are not suggesting that you give up all modern conveniences, you may want to consider using low-tech, manual modes of travel, household chores and hobbies in your daily routine. Low-tech workouts using your own body weight for resistance, free weights, jump ropes, or resistance bands are also low cost, old school ways to burn calories without joining a gym or using motor powered exercise equipment. Just to give you an idea of the calorie-burning potential of a simpler lifestyle, take a look at these numbers: (approximate calories burned per hour based on a 185 pound person)

• Bicycling, 16-19 mph – 533
• Jumping Rope, moderate pace – 444
• Jumping Jacks – 377
• Working with heavy, non-power tools – 355
• Masonry -- 311
• Weaving cloth -- 311
• Shoveling snow or chopping wood by hand – 266
• Digging, spading dirt or carrying/stacking wood – 222
• Walking or Horseback Riding -- 178

Another benefit of doing things the old fashioned way is that they also tend to be more environmentally friendly. They typically don’t require gas or electricity, just a little elbow grease.

Sources:

PubMed

Food Research and Action Center

Harvard Medical School

For the longest time, I had been more than a little skeptical about the merits of being a vegetarian or vegan. Just seemed really extreme and a bit unhealthy to take certain foods off my menu for anything other than health reasons dealing with allergies (I've been a bit allergic to chocolate in the past) or weight (keeping my cholesterol down without taking a statin drug). That is, until I married my wife who had been a vegan and had "lapsed" to vegetarianism by the time we got hitched nearly 20 years ago.

For the next six years, I lived the life of a very part-time vegetarian, usually eating meaty snacks and meals by day, but much less of it, and sometimes not a bit, at night. We didn't have any rules about me eating meat, except that Sandy wouldn't cook it, which led me down the path of least resistance, meaning I became a part-time vegetarian by default.

I never really appreciated just how realistic and doable vegetarianism could be until we hosted a post-Thanksgiving gathering for friends of ours, sans the meat. But, neither could our friends who were more than happy to take home leftovers…

Sandy left the life of a vegetarian six years later, tiring of getting all of her protein from dairy products and beans and citing a still abiding love for chicken (especially her Mom's homemade fried chicken). Yet, there have been more than a few days lately on this WeightWatchers plan I've been following -- one that emphasizes lifestyle changes over dieting -- that red meat just hasn't been on the menu. Not avoiding meat, mind you. I just craved a salad with small dollops of my favorite dressing than a thick, juicy and very problematic hamburger.

If it's hard for you to get the right mix of fruits and veggies for your health -- believe me I still struggle mightily with that problem every day -- New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman suggests a creative and effective solution he discovered by doing it: Following a vegan diet daily until 6 p.m., then eating whatever you want in portions of your choice. Although this was an obviously successful solution for Bittman, some experts gently remind us that getting the right nutrients remains just as important as eating too many calories.

What creative touches have you incorporated into your diet lately to support a healthier lifestyle?

Washington Post April 15, 2010

Medicine has already done a great deal to slow down the progression of breast cancer in the Western world just through better awareness of timely mammogram screenings, improved treatment regimens and earlier diagnoses. If women want to improve their odds of avoiding breast cancer by up to 30 percent, however, the responsibility is on them to incorporate more exercise and better eating habits in their daily routines, according to experts addressing the influence of lifestyle changes on breast cancer at a recent health conference in Spain.

As one health expert from the University of Milan put it rather deliberately to the AP about the commitment patients must make outside the doctor's office to avoid breast cancer, "What can be achieved with screening has been achieved. We can't do much more. It's time to move onto other things."

This sentiment certainly coincides with a report we discussed in this space late last year about the modestly falling rates of cancer diagnoses and mortality rates among Americans, and how lifestyle changes would greatly accelerate those numbers.

Here's one possibly very harmful disconnect: Despite eye-opening evidence the obesity epidemic contributes to the spread of all kinds of cancer among women including breast cancer, a few health advocates still downplay that obvious link, fearing some patients may come to believe the medical profession is blaming them for their own health problems. (Still, this observation rings very hollow to me, as I expect it does to all of you reading this post.)

There's no better time than right now -- April is National Cancer Control Month -- to take better responsibility for your health. In fact, an exercise program are great ways to get started.

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USA Today March 25, 2010