‘Snack’ Your Way to Better Fitness with Katie Lawton, MEd

Podcast Transcript

John Horton:

Hey there, and welcome to another Health Essentials Podcast. I'm John Horton, your host.

Research shows that snacking can be a good way to improve your health. Hold off, though, before you go searching for munchies. We're not talking about food. We're talking about exercise snacks. Turns out that short bursts of activity done during the normal course of your day can be an incredibly effective way to build fitness with no sweating required. Sounds too good to be true. Right? Well, it's not. We've got exercise physiologist Katie Lawton with us today to explain why. She's one of the many trusted experts at Cleveland Clinic who chat with us every week on the podcast to help us live a little healthier. Now, let's learn how you can get stronger and more fit just a few minutes at a time.

Welcome back to the podcast, Katie. So glad you could carve out a little bit of time in your schedule and sit down and chat with us.

Katie Lawton:

No, I'm excited to be here.

John Horton:

Well, I got to tell you, I've really been looking forward to this one because I feel like this particular topic can help people rethink how they can get or stay fit. So many of us look at exercise as something that's an ordeal, and you got to have special gear and clothes and equipment and gobs of time, but it doesn't have to be that complicated. Right?

Katie Lawton:

No, it really doesn't, and I think it should be easy, or it should be somewhat easy for us to at least schedule into our day as well. If it's not easy, it's not something we're generally going to try and make the time to do.

John Horton:

Well, that takes us right into our main topic today, which is this whole idea of exercise snacks. So, is there really that much good that can come out of just moving around kind of vigorously for a minute or two at a time?

Katie Lawton:

Honestly, this is a new topic. I want to say I looked into this in, I think 2019, is when the first study happened on this, so we really don't know just yet what the overall benefits will be. The study that they originally did was off of college students. They were inactive college students. So obviously, they're a younger crowd to start with. And they ended up having them do vigorous intensity for less than a minute. I think they were doing some stair walking, and I think there was a little bit of rest in between. So, they had to do 20 flights, take a rest, and they had to do those three times. And they did it three times throughout the day.

So again, sorry, I'm getting into this a little bit. But yeah, I think then there was another study done. I don't remember the population on that one, but they've all been really small groups right now. So, I think we're going to see this being studied upon just a little bit further and try to find out how much is going to be necessary, how many days a week, what type of exercise. So, I think we are going to see this a little bit more and to see what type of other benefits potentially could come of this.

John Horton:

Yeah. And I get the sense that a lot of this goes to the fact that we are living, as a whole, a more sedentary life. We have a lot of office jobs. We're sitting around a lot more. So, this is a reminder, just get up and move every so often.

Katie Lawton:

And people ask me about standing desks, even often. I think that's, again, more of a personal preference. But I think part of the other problem, too, is COVID created a lot of problems for people working from home. I do talk to a lot of people that literally don't leave the house all week. I mean, if you really want to think of it that way. People even going hybrid, they are getting up and moving around and getting into the office a little bit more. But I want to say if I ask some people, "How many steps do you think you get in a day?" And they say, "Maybe between three and 5,000 steps." So, I think COVID has unfortunately created us to be a little bit more sedentary in office life as well.

John Horton:

Well, you don't even think about that. When you go to work, you'd at least walk from your car into the office and things like that. You're right. When you're working from home, I know I have days where I go from upstairs to downstairs, and you'll look at your step counter, and it's like, "Wow, I have not moved much."

Katie Lawton:

I mean, I'm sure people decide to just remove the step counter altogether because they didn't want to even know or have an idea how many steps, they were taking that day. And I was talking to some people, especially in the beginning of COVID, it was meeting after meeting after meeting because they were trying to keep everybody busy. So that was keeping everybody even more sedentary times as well.

John Horton:

Yeah. Well, one of the things I read when I was researching on the whole exercise snack idea, and I saw somebody they quoted, and they said, "It's not about structuring your day around exercise, but you need to try to structure some exercise into your day." So, is that the mindset you should have in looking at this?

Katie Lawton:

I actually quote as the other way around, so, I apologize, I usually do say that you need to actually plan things around your exercise so that you know what time you need to finish work, and you leave the office by 4:30 to get to the gym at this time so that things are being placed over the exercise. So, I actually think your day should actually be planned around, so if you want to work out by one o'clock in the afternoon, then what has to be done before and you know what you can do afterward. So, I'm actually on the flip side of how that mindset goes.

John Horton:

Well, you are clearly more organized than me. So, when it comes to snacking, our exercise snacks, you would advise planning them into your day. So, looking and going, "All right, I have a gap here in my schedule. I can work one of these little quick burst activities in," and get it set throughout your day, so you stay with it.

Katie Lawton:

Again, the research so far, what they've been telling us is seven days a week is three times a day. To get the effect out of it, you have to be doing it three times a day for seven days a week. So again, what they're telling us is what's going to be effective, and to be able to see the results and see the improvements in your cardiovascular function, consistency is going to be important. So yeah, you're going to have to look at what time in the morning and middle of the day and when you're going to be able to do it in the evening as well.

John Horton:

Because everybody does better with a schedule. See, this is why people should listen to you as the expert instead of me.

Katie Lawton:

I mean, yeah, I do think most people do follow a schedule or a planner. I work a little bit in executive health, and I will generally tell patients that they need to have their secretaries actually putting the exercise into their schedule because they have secretaries that actually map out their day, so you need to actually physically have them do it for you, unfortunately.

John Horton:

Well, so let's talk about some things that you can do to get exercise snacks in, some of these activities that you can do. Give us a lineup of things we can do to get moving.

Katie Lawton:

It's going to be more cardiovascular. They're looking for vigorous cardiovascular exercise. So, something that you're going to be able to go potentially all out for a minute or less. Right? The study was based off of stairs, so stair climbing is going to be the one. I think most people have access to stairs at work or at home, so stair climbing. If you want to look at jumping jacks, jump rope. I don't know, if you want to jog or sprint, is what I should probably say, actually.

I would probably get away from trying to get on equipment. Right? Too much equipment, I guess, just because not everybody has that around. But, yeah, if you want to get on a bike and go all out for a minute, maybe looking into something like that. Again, this is all based on the research that they're looking at vigorous activity. So, something that you're going to be able to go all out on. Burpees, rowing, those are maybe some other options as well.

John Horton:

So, if you're at work, though, and you're not going to have a lot of that stuff sitting around, you can just make up your own sort of things just using your body. I think I saw where the wall was sitting is a thing.

Katie Lawton:

OK. So that one, I have not seen that one yet. Again, that one's going to be more for strength, so that's not something that's going to increase your heart rate

John Horton:

OK.

Katie Lawton:

So, I don't know because I think again, even in the study, they did find an increase in strength, but I think they were doing a set of 10 of lunges, a set of 10 of squats, and there was another movement they were doing as far as the warmup goes before each of the three sessions. So, they were doing three sets of 10 and squats each time. So maybe, I don't know if that's where they got a little bit of increase in strength. But if your goal is to increase quad strength, then yeah, I mean, doing a wall sit might be good. But unfortunately, I just don't know too much yet about what the overall benefit of that is going to be over a long-term span.

John Horton:

Would any sort of movement help? Even if you do stretch or you said walking in place, if you were on a Zoom call or something like that or a phone call, you could just march around your office a little bit. Anything like that that gets your heart rate going a little bit would be beneficial?

Katie Lawton:

I don't know if there's necessarily as much research on even just walking in place yet at this point for me to say yes. But I think the biggest piece is always going to be that consistency aspect, making sure you're doing it on a daily basis and moving on a daily basis rather than doing it a day here and then maybe one day next week. I can't say that's going to be very impactful if we're just doing it when we remember to do it. So, again, if you can do it over a span of a month or two months and you really find the consistency in it, I think you're going to see the impact of it.

John Horton:

Well, and I think you might've touched on this, but just to reemphasize it, how often should you look to snack during the day with this? Just two times, three times? I mean, is there just a goal that you should look to hit?

Katie Lawton:

Again, this is newer, so I think we need a little bit more research to find out how much is needed. But right now, the research is telling us those three times a day, seven days a week, is really what they're saying is what can improve your cardiovascular function, is …if that's what is going to be necessary to do it.

John Horton:

It's hard to believe that just that sort of movement where you're not really breaking a sweat — and I guess we should emphasize that if you're at work doing it because I know people, you don't want to show up at your next meeting dripping — but this is just a quick burst, and you do it, you get a little out of breath, and then you pull the plug on it. And it's enough to get your body, I guess, moving and everything activated. Right?

Katie Lawton:

Yeah. And again, to go back to this, the study and the research right now says it was on inactive individuals to begin with. Right? So, if we're doing this for somebody that's already highly active as it is, I don't know how much of an impact it's really going to take into effect. But if you're someone that really doesn't really exercise a whole lot, yeah, I think that that is going to be something that's going to make probably a little bit more impact than not doing anything at all.

John Horton:

And it's so hard to believe it, in these little movements during the day, just taking a couple of minutes to say, "I'm going to walk up and down the stairs for a minute or two," that it makes that much of a difference. But if you're somebody who's not working out regularly, it sounds like you can get a lot of benefit out of doing it.

Katie Lawton:

Well, my guess is there's probably more of a benefit from somebody that's not doing anything to light activity versus someone who runs regularly or somebody that does cross-fit regularly or something along those lines. I don't know at what point yet because we don't have the research on it to know that there's going to be a whole lot of cardiovascular function benefit for those people. The research is saying, again — there's only two research studies at this point, maybe three — that are saying that they have found that there has been an impact as far as cardiovascular function for those individuals that did start into the snacking.

John Horton:

I mean, obviously, that helps your heart, your lungs, and it should just make you feel a little better if you just start working these little exercise sessions into your day.

Katie Lawton:

And even in general, the other part, too, is we don't know what the difference is if you were to go for a 30-minute walk versus doing snacking throughout the day. I don't know if there is a difference between the two. So, if you want to also think about it as maybe you've been trying to go for walks throughout the day versus doing some snacking, I think it is going to be what's going to work better for you and your schedule and what's going to make you be more consistent with it. The vigorous intensity is probably a little bit more intimidating to a lot of people. So maybe looking for maybe even trying to do probably a little bit longer than a minute walk. But yeah, maybe trying to use the stairs instead of taking the elevator could be another thing that also to consider around the office to be a little bit more active throughout the workday.

John Horton:

Well, yeah, and take the spot at the end of the parking lot instead of circling eight times to see if you can find that spot right by the door.

Katie Lawton:

We all know we're guilty of it at times as well.

John Horton:

And I feel like we get back here, and we've touched on this topic in so many of the podcasts. It's just that, as a whole, people are not active enough. So, it sounds like this concept of exercise snacking, it's just a way to think about moving a little more and getting your body activated and those muscles engaged and all that stuff, so you don't just stiffen up and turn into, I guess, a blob by the end of the day.

Katie Lawton:

And I apologize. I think I skipped over it. But you had mentioned even stretching for that snacking option as well if that's your goal. Right? It depends on what your goal is for doing any type of snacking. Yeah, if you think you can stop work and do some stretching throughout the day, I think that is going to be much more beneficial. Again, if we can do it more regularly, you're going to see more of impact as far as flexibility goes. But is your overall goal to get up and move around and get more steps? Then no, stretching is not necessarily going to be something that's going to help reach those step counts. But yeah, depending on, I think, what you ultimately want to do with the snacking will depend on what type of exercise you should be doing during those snacking.

John Horton:

So, find something that fits what you need and what suits your needs, and just build that into the day?

Katie Lawton:

Absolutely.

John Horton:

All right, well now I feel like I need to get out of this chair and start moving around ow. That always happens when I talk to you.

Katie Lawton:

Agreed.

John Horton:

So, before I do, though, do you have anything else that you want to add about this idea of exercise snacks and how people can do it?

Katie Lawton:

Yeah. And I think I always mention this in all of the times that we've talked, especially when we're talking about vigorous-intensity exercise. You absolutely need to make sure that you're cleared with your cardiologist first and then looking at some orthopaedic things as well. But we do have to be a little bit more concerned about people with heart arrhythmias and coronary artery disease, and there are some aneurysms. And also, the other part too is getting that warmup beforehand. It is a little bit more beneficial for injury prevention as far as the musculature goes in our legs and things along those lines. So, if we're going to do a true snack based on the research study, they were doing a warmup beforehand, which I also think is always important as well.

John Horton:

All right, so if you're going to do something that's pushing the bounds of that, make sure you get a little warm-up. And maybe that's your walk to the stairs before you go up and down those flights and work it in a little.

Katie Lawton:

I guess in the study, they were doing squats, lunges and maybe some jumping jacks beforehand. So even before vigorous-intensity exercise or any type of cardiovascular exercise, we want to try and make sure we are getting our heart rate up a little bit because it is a lot easier for our heart to get a little bit more of a jumpstart when we jump right out of the gate. So, it is actually a warmup for your heart, too, to think about doing something a little bit beforehand versus going from a seated position to just taking an all-out sprint up the stairs.

John Horton:

Well, you never want to surprise your ticker too much, so that's always good advice. Thanks again for coming in, Katie. It's always great to talk with you. You have wonderful tips, so thank you.

Katie Lawton:

I love talking to you, too.

John Horton:

Bye-Bye.

Katie Lawton:

Bye.

John Horton:

It's time to rethink the idea of exercise. Sure, you can spend an hour breaking a sweat at the gym, but it's also important to just move briskly in short spurts throughout the day. Consider this an invitation to start exercise snacking. Until next time, be well.

Speaker 3:

Thank you for listening to Health Essentials, brought to you by Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Clinic Children's. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or visit clevelandclinic.org/hepodcast. This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace the advice of your own physician.