Well, it looks as if the weather is breaking.. 68 degrees today!

Time for all of us groundhogs to get out of our holes and get some movement.  Take advantage of these nice days and get out for a round of golf or some early yard prep.  

Being deficient in movement is a major contributor to stress response and ill health.  Your risk for most chronic illnesses, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes is substantially reduced when you increase your daily movement.

So how much movement shoulde we get?  If you want to approximate the amount of movement our ancestors got when living in a natural environment.. you'd have to add as much as 12 miles of walking each day!  Researchers estimate that our total energy expenditure (TEE) for a day barely touches our ancestors resting metabolic rate (RMR).  

It's unlikely that most of us are ever going to get as much movement as our genetics were engineered for, but getting that 1/2 hour a day of brisk exercise or walking is very reasonable.  It's also what's recommended by a number of experts as an amount that will greatly reduce your risk for chronic illness, especially when coupled with improvements in diet.

Much of aging and chronic illness is related to insulin metabolism.  Barry Sears, author of the zone books, would tell you that every marker of aging is tied to insulin production.  Increasing your movement increases your insulin sensitivity, and reducing your consumption of refined carbohydrates.. particularly breads, pastas, cookies, cakes, and processed foods, reduces your production of insulin.  Both will improve your health and increase your length of life.

Your health will always be your genetic expression of your environment (primarily how you eat, move, and think), and since your genetics haven't changed since birth, the state of health you're in today is a direct reflection of your lifestyle choices and the environment you've built around you.  If you want to change your health, there's only one way to do it.. by changing your environment.

So get moving!