Anyway speaking of being Amish, my friend sent me this link...looking through it I SHOULD become Amish, so i won't be tubby and have all those lovehandles which I have been shamelessly displaying ( I got 2 tight tight shirts for my birthday).
To be more thinnish, try being more Amish
As noted here recently by Sarah White, scientists have found that there is a common gene variation that makes people more likely to be overweight, but three or four hours of moderate exercise each day can nullify the gene’s effect.
In fact, persons with the fat-inclined variant gene who got lots of physical activity were no more prone to excess weight than those without the variant, and weighed an average 15 pounds less than those with the variant who didn’t exercise.
The scientists suggested that those with the fat-inclined gene need, almost literally, to exercise their butts off. Unfortunately, this raises the question of just how people are expected to add three or four hours of workouts to their daily schedule. In fact, there may be at least a partial, practical answer.
The key is that the scientists who made this discovery did so by studying the Amish of Pennsylvania, a people not renowned for gym memberships or extended workouts or sophisticated exercise equipment…or indeed, sophisticated equipment of any kind. And therein lies the key to their physical fitness.
The Amish do not avail themselves of the labor-saving devices and electronic diversions that the rest of us enjoy. They labor. And when not laboring, they don’t sit and gape at a video screen. They work off calories simply by hand and foot: house cleaning, gardening, walking, athletics, and so forth.
This may not seem like a serious exertion program, but the Amish are prodigious eaters of food as fattening as anything at KFC — pork, gravy, black bread, more gravy — and according to the scientists, it certainly works for them. Perhaps it will work for you as well.
The Amish exercise plan — no shunning of electricity required
This doesn’t mean that you have to buy a mule for transportation and cut the power lines to your home. It means that there are ways you can, let’s say, “Amish-ize” your lifestyle with potentially good results for your waistline.
We’ll start with the obvious measures. The Amish do not drive. Probably half of their lack of excess poundage can be traced to that alone. There are surely certain places that you presently go to on a regular basis by car that you could get to without great inconvenience by bicycle.
This would actually give you bragging rights over the Amish, who generally travel by horse-drawn conveyance rather than bike. There’s not much calorie burn when the horse is doing all the work.
In addition, the Amish are largely an agricultural community. They grow their own food to a significant degree, which means they are engaged in digging, weeding, furrowing, tending, and harvesting crops to a great extent. In the process, they simultaneously get exercise, raise healthy, nourishing, low-fat produce, and save money. How can you pass up a deal like that?
And you needn’t make a big, onerous deal out of it. A few tomato plants, a few zucchinis, a row of snap beans and one of lettuce, and you’re in business. Just keeping them healthy, productive, weed-free and watered on a regular basis will keep you moving.
For that matter, if you have a yard, you have a number of calorie-burning possibilities. Start with the lawn. If someone else currently mows it for you, discharge them and mow it yourself. And no Amish no-noes such as a riding mower or motorized push mower; get yourself a sturdy manual lawnmower and go to it.
Similarly, if you currently use an electric or gas-powered hedge trimmer, replace it with a simple pair of hedge shears. Sand things by hand rather than by power tool. And so on. In general, the idea is to abandon the use of electrical or gas-powered tools in favor of manual alternatives wherever possible.
Exercise during chores, and no games for you
The same with household appliances. You can’t be expected to hand-launder everything, for example, but eschewing the clothes dryer and lugging the clean wash into the yard and hanging the items on a clothesline can provide a good 15 minutes of physical activity.
Hardwood floors needn’t be vacuumed; they can just as easily be swept. The same goes for driveways, sidewalks, patios, walkways, or other outdoor surfaces that you currently just clean with the hose.
And finally, to repeat: The Amish do not have TV sets or video games. Study after study has linked the amount of time spent glued to the tube or console with the amount of excess weight on the gluee. The more you separate yourself from these electronic sloth enablers, the better.
Go for a run. Rake some leaves. Shoot some hoops. If you’re really serious, get yourself a butter churn.
Adopting a more Amish lifestyle could do wonders for your health and weight. And you don’t even have to go to the prayer meetings.
(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
Source: http://calorielab.com/news/2008/09/12/amish-exercise-obesity/
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