Try This Snack for Better Health

Forget the matching workout sets, the perfectly planned gym sessions, and the hour-long commitment that never happens. Here's the plot twist: One minute of vigorous movement = 40% lower risk of premature death.

Yes, one minute. The same amount of time it takes to microwave leftovers. 

We overcomplicate everything, including exercise, when we just need to show up for ourselves. 

From this episode on "Fitness Snacking", I pray you learn to embrace short workouts as a legitimate and effective approach to fitness, particularly for women in perimenopause and menopause. 

Main topics today:

1.  The Power of Short Workouts ("Fitness Snacking") 

2.  Key Benefits 

3.  Why Short Workouts Work 

4.  Practical Implementation Options 

Links Discussed:

YouTube: @amyconnell (psst subscribe if you haven’t and like the episodes…it’s super helpful!)

10-Minute Workouts

Research for Today’s Episode

One-minute bursts of activity during daily tasks could prolong your life, finds study

Analysis: Short bursts of physical activity during daily life may lower risk of premature death

Short, intense bursts of exercise more effective after stroke than steady, moderate exercise

We are on break until January 6. Until then:

• Follow the show to get new episodes when we are back
• Check out the back catalog and search for specific topics at https://www.gracedhealth.com/podcast
• Grab Strong and Vibrant at Home for a friend, sister or yourself at https://www.gracedhealth.com/strongandvibrant

See you January 6!

My latest recommended ways to nourish and move your body, mind and spirit: Nourished Notes Bi-Weekly Newsletter

Be Strong and Vibrant! Online Strength Training Course for Christian Women in Perimenopause and Beyond

30+ Non-Gym Ways to Improve Your Health (free download)

Connect with Amy:
GracedHealth.com
Instagram: @GracedHealth
YouTube: @AmyConnell

Transcript

Try This Snack for Better Health

Graced Health Podcast

Host: Amy Connell

Hey everyone, glad you are here. Before we get into this episode, I need to set this up for you just a little bit. I know most of you listen through your ears on a podcast player, but we are getting more and more people watching on YouTube. And if you are watching on YouTube, then you notice that I probably look a little different. That is because I am showing up here today with no makeup on except for just a little bit of tinted something on my lips, because without it I look like death warmed over. So I was like, "No, I gotta do this."

Why am I showing up here without makeup, and why am I even mentioning it? Because the more I have been on video, I'll just be honest—I mean, I care what I look like. I care how I show up. I would not consider myself to overly care, but I still like, you know, I want to make sure that my eye makeup is presenting well or that I have the lipstick on because that's how my mama taught me.

I was looking at my content calendar and looking at my weeks, and all of a sudden I just had this moment of panic and thought, "I'm off a week. I need to get an episode done." But where I am in the week, what I have to do—I am not camera ready, if you want to call it that. And I was not planning on being camera ready for the rest of the week and into next week. And I need to have this done before next week because I do have this amazing, amazing assistant who helps me some on the back end, and I need to get things to her. And I thought, "Oh my gosh, I gotta go. I gotta put the makeup on, I gotta do my hair, you know, all of the things." And then I thought, "You know what? No, I'm just gonna show up." This is gonna be a short episode, and I think under the context of what we're talking about today, I think this is just fine.

What are we talking about, and how does that relate to my makeup-free face?

I want to offer you something that might change—maybe completely change, maybe somewhat change—how you think about exercise. And honestly, it might just be the permission that you didn't know you needed. We are diving into the science and the power of short workouts, what some people might call fitness snacking. And in the spirit of practicing what I preach, I'm trying to keep this episode to 12-ish minutes. We'll see if I can get there.

And why I am bringing my makeup-free face into this is because I think sometimes we overcomplicate things and we think that it has to look—pun intended or not, I don't know—a certain way, when really we just need to show up for ourselves.

So let's jump into this.

Permission to Start Small

Here's what I know: we get overwhelmed. We hear "exercise," we hear "workout," we think we need to do the long gym thing. I mean, I have talked enough about how you don't have to have a full hour at the gym, but still we want to have a perfectly planned workout. Maybe we want to have those cute matching workout clothes. I mean, look, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that every time I do a video and put it on YouTube of my workouts, I'm thinking about what I'm wearing. I'm thinking about if it matches. I'm thinking about how I feel in those clothes. So of course these are things that we're thinking about when we have this word "exercise" or "workout" or, you know, whatever.

And then when we don't have all of that, sometimes we just do nothing. We're like, "Ugh, it's overwhelming." Again, just like me today—I am like, "Oh my gosh, I gotta get myself ready for video. I don't want to do anything." And then I was like, "Oh no, we're gonna practice what we preach here."

But what if I told you that one minute—just one minute—of vigorous movement could cut your risk of premature death by up to 40%? That's a lot, y'all. 40%. Now of course, we all come in here with different fitness levels, but if we are people who are having a hard time doing something, then that one minute can make a big difference. And I bet you could find that one minute in your day.

This statistic comes from research from the University of Sydney. They studied something called VILPA—vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity. And basically it is just living a more active life. Three or four daily bursts of vigorous activity, lasting about one minute each—like taking the stairs really quickly or adding some quick speed bursts in wherever you were walking—these can make a massive difference.

I will say VILPA to me seems adjacent to the concept of NEAT, which is non-exercise activity thermogenesis. There's a lot of acronyms in the fitness world. You know this; you don't need me to tell you this. But NEAT is all of the movement that we do in a day that is not formal exercise, and your risk of mortality actually goes down a lot with NEAT as well.

But on the short workouts, that fitness snacking—let me tell you about this study. This is kind of cool. A 2019 review found that three 10-minute bouts of exercise provide the same health benefits as one 30-minute workout. No differences in cardiovascular fitness, blood pressure, blood sugar outcomes. So basically, if you don't have 30 minutes, you break that up into 10-minute increments.

Adding just 10 minutes of physical activity a day for adults over 40 could prevent more than 110,000 premature deaths every year in the United States. 10 minutes—because we get so many benefits just from those short intervals. Even a 10-minute bout of physical activity has been shown to improve memory and cognition.

So let's think about how that works in our phase of life in perimenopause and menopause. Brain fog—we all have it. What if on those days that we just feel like we are moving through mud and we can't get our brain to meet us where we need it to be, what if we just did a 10-minute workout? And I'll talk about options for 10-minute workouts here in a minute.

Research also shows that older adults have better blood sugar control when they take a short walk after meals compared to one 45-minute walk a day. So if you can, after you have your meal, go for a 10-minute walk. Those multiple short sessions throughout the day can actually be more effective for certain health markers than just one longer workout. Again, nothing wrong with the longer workout, but if you need this permission to do short things, I'm trying to give it to you.

This is one of those episodes where I want you to take what works for you, leave the rest. Actually, all of my episodes are like that, but I'm really coming here because I know that sometimes we think, "Oh gosh, I don't have time to do a whole workout, so I'm just not gonna do anything." But here's the thing: your body doesn't care if you do 30 minutes all at once or break it into three 10-minute chunks. The cumulative effect is what matters.

Three Reasons Short Workouts Are So Powerful

Number one: It's a low barrier to entry. 10 minutes isn't intimidating. Oftentimes you don't need to shower afterward—like, it depends on what you're doing. But you know, chances are you're just not gonna get super sweaty because your body isn't going to be building up that internal heat that it then needs to release the heat via sweat. You may not even need to change into special clothes. So it's just a really quick and easy thing to do.

I'll tell you that I have been doing 10-minute plyometric training on the mornings that I train my clients, and then I'm trying to get these little fitness snacks in throughout the day. And this was actually not even intentional in tandem with this episode—it's just what works for me in this season right now.

The second thing is because the accessibility to it is easier, you have a greater potential to be more consistent. And when something is more manageable, you're more likely to do it regularly. And doing it regularly is really what creates those health benefits. I'd rather you do 10 minutes five times a week than plan for one hour-long session that never happens.

And finally, it just kind of shifts your mindset. When you start seeing movement as something that you can kind of sprinkle in, that you can snack in throughout your day, where it's not an all-or-nothing event, then it becomes part of your lifestyle and you start looking for ways that you can get that movement in.

I have a friend who—I don't know how many steps she gets in a day—but anytime she can, she takes a call outside, she's walking. She just constantly is looking for ways to incorporate movement into her world because she doesn't have as much time with her business and with her schedule to do a really solid chunk. It's the mindset of "I have a little bit of time. What can I do a little bit?" rather than nothing of a lot.

So How Do We Do This? What Are Some Practical Ways?

Option one: You just take your everyday movements and do a little bit more of them. Maybe you go up and down the stairs a couple times rather than just one time. Maybe if your knees feel up to it, you can do squats while you brush your teeth or while you wait for your coffee to brew. I will say, only do this if it feels right to you and it doesn't flip that switch into obsessive behavior, which many of us are trying to get out of. Or maybe you do some wall pushups or counter pushups while something's in the microwave. Maybe you just get on the phone and you're walking briskly around your house, or do like my girlfriend does and go outside, put the earbuds in, go outside and take the call out there. But these little things are just kind of everyday movements.

Another option—again, I want you to discern what is right for you—but can you set some alarms throughout the day? Maybe every couple of hours, can you just do a quick burst and move in a way that you really like to do? Do a dance party? And I gotta pause and say this thing about this dance party. This is a wonderful thing to do. I come to you telling you this—I don't ever do this. And I grew up dancing and I love dancing, but I feel like a total goofball. So, but I want to—I don't want to not say it because you may love a dance party and you may have people in your world who you would love to do a dance party with. But I just, I feel like in full disclosure, I just need to tell you I don't do a dance party. I remember one time I was watching the Ellen show a bajillion years ago, and I got up and I danced with whatever the band that they had, and I felt like a goofball. I'm not saying you're a goofball if you do it—I just, I just need to be honest here about the dance party.

But anyway, you get what I'm saying here. Every few hours, just remind yourself and be kind to your future self by setting that alarm of like, "Oh, I gotta move." Because how many of us get in that zone and we're like, "Okay, let's go," and then we forget that we need to drink our water and pee and move?

Research on healthcare workers showed that 10-minute physical activity breaks during working hours actually significantly improved attention levels and executive function. If you're wanting your brain to work better or maybe think in a different way or more creative way, this is one thing that you can do.

Option three—I mentioned a second ago—you can take a post-meal walk. Just that 10 minutes helps regulate your blood sugar, it aids digestion, it gives you mental clarity. I have found that this is something that I really like.

Finally, option four is follow a quick workout video. I have been slowly putting out 10-minute workouts on my YouTube channel—it's just @amyconnell—with the plan that I was going to release this episode. I was also inspired by this same friend who I was just talking about a second ago. She and her sister would exchange 10-minute videos on YouTube every day. My understanding is they would alternate days and they would share it with each other, and it was just their own little club where they would both do the workout, they would say "done," and then the next day the other one would do it.

And my videos are all over the place, honestly. Some are full body strength, some are core focused or core and pulling—you know how important pulling is. Some are lower body, and it's just a way for you to get that fitness snack.

Another option I have found—if you have Apple Fitness Plus—is there are some great workouts on there that you can filter down by time limit. So you can go on there and say, "I just want something that is 10 minutes long," and they have all kinds of different formats. That is another option if you are just looking for, like, "I want someone to tell me what to do. I don't want to have to come up with a whole workout plan, even if it's for 10 minutes." That's another great option as well.

And of course you can just go to YouTube and search in 10-minute videos. But do know that the ones that I'm creating and that I'm putting out there are specifically designed for women in perimenopause and beyond. If there are lower movement exercises like squats and lunges, I will show you an alternative that you can do instead of the squat and lunge, because I know that we are all coming in with different bodies.

But that is option four: just follow a quick workout video.

Of course, if we're talking about fitness, I could go on and on. But in the spirit of doing little fitness snacking, I'm trying to give you a podcast snack, and I do want to keep this short. And I also want to say, just like with my podcast episodes that often go longer than this, if you can do more than 10 minutes, go for it. That's wonderful. I don't want you hearing "only do 10 minutes" if you have the capacity for more. If you have the capacity for more and you want to do more and that would bring you joy, go for it.

But if 10 minutes is all you've got, that's great. Do it. In my house, we have a saying: "Something is better than nothing." And I'm gonna tell you that this something is actually beneficial. It matters. You're doing something real for your health.

And just like 10 minutes offers value, so does something even shorter than that if that's all you can do—if you're exhausted, if you haven't slept well (yes, hand raised last night), if you're caring for aging parents, if you're in the thick of all the perimenopause symptoms. Then start with five or three or just one—just do something to get your heart rate up and to get your muscles moving, because it's not only gonna help your body, but it's going to help the metrics within our body, and it will also help our brain.

There is no shame in fitness snacking. And just like snacking in between meals can keep our blood sugar stabilized if we are dipping low, it can provide us energy to keep going until the next meal—those fitness snacks can do that as well.

Okay, that's all for today. Go out there and have a Grace Day.