Living, Lite

by Judy Wurtman

Latest blog entry: 11/6/2009 11:02:00 AM

Twittering, texting and Face-booking your way to weight loss

Recently I had a houseguest who is extremely computer literate. Full disclosure: she is my college- age granddaughter. After only a day, my computer contained more songs in a playlist than I will listen to in a lifetime, I learned how to use the video camera on Skype and how to send a Skype text message (she tested me on this several times). Finally, with her help, I was able to set up a Facebook site. A few days later, after she returned to her dorm, I was simultaneously talking to her on the phone, following her instructions on how to play those tunes on my playlist, reading a message she had sent me on Skype and checking out a Website that sold decorative items for dorm rooms. Fortunately, before my technology-overloaded brain could crash, she received another phone call and hung up. Afterward I wondered if all this typing and scanning and clicking and mouse moving might be beneficial for weight loss. How could one eat when all one’s fingers were occupied? In the old days, perhaps last year, weight loss organizations would give out lists of suggestions on what to do if you felt like eating but had run out of calories for the day. You were told to: take a walk (the time of night was irrelevant), soak in a bath (assuming you had a bath tub that had not been used to wash the dog) listen to music (if you could download your music on your iPod), read a magazine (if it is still being published), call a friend, or work on your scrapbook. The problem with all these suggestions is that it was certainly easy to eat while carrying them out. Well, eating in the bathtub was not too easy if the food was crumbly, but no other so-called distracting activities would really distract you from thinking of the left over pie in the refrigerator. But how can I possibly have eaten anything while carrying out all the activities involved in my recent phone- computer conversation with my granddaughter? I was so busy looking for icons to click or dragging my mouse to open or shut a window or trying to turn down the volume on the computer that was at an ear-blasting level (from her testing my play list) that eating would have been impossibility. And if any of you send text messages or watch others do so, you can see how difficult it is to use a fork or spoon when your thumbs are busy beating out urgent messages to your friends and family. In fact, one could see an extreme situation where our fingers are so attached to our keyboards that the only way we can obtain nourishment is through a straw. Is it possible that the answer to non-essential eating, i.e. snacking from habit, boredom, procrastination or frustration, is as close as our cell phone, computer keyboards, tweets and faceboard friendships? Of course, it is always possible to leave the computer or cell phone screen to grab a bag of chocolate chip cookies or a pint of ice cream. But if your computer or cell phone is calling out to you to return to the keyboard, you may have to either gobble the food or forget about it eating it entirely. Moreover, if you tend to use the video portion of Skype while talking to a friend, you may be less inclined to sit and talk and eat on camera than simply sit and talk. Unfortunately, the major limitation to this weight-loss approach is the sedentary nature of virtual interactions. Unlike the old sewing machines that required the seamstress to pump pedals to move the needle, we need move only our fingers, thumbs or the palm of our hands on a mouse to carry out our virtual conversations or interact with the virtual world of the Web. You can talk on a cell phone while exercising but there is no piece of gym equipment that lets you text on your cell phone or talk on Skype while you are working out. And the problem with talking on a cell phone while running or climbing on an elliptical trainer is that your panting and puffing makes you sound as if you are in a wind tunnel. Can we program our computers and cell phones, our Facebooks and Twitter sites to make us stop our fingers from moving and start moving our bodies? Would we be motivated to turn off the computer or cell phone if a message “ GO EXERCISE NOW” start to flash and beep? What if there were an authoritative voice emanating from the computer telling us to “Get up, get out and move”? Most of us have experienced the computer-generated voice that comes over a building public address system telling us to exit the building because of a fire emergency. Try as you might to ignore it because the last l00 times the voice came on, it was a false alarm, it is impossible to do so. Your feet find the staircase by the exit and the next thing you know you are on the street. Could a similarly compelling voice be programmed into our phones and computers that will push us to put on our sneakers and sweats and start to move? A sedentary lifestyle may show up as weight gain faster than your computer downloads a large program.So even though moving our fingers on the keyboard may prevent them from moving food into our mouths , weight loss will come about only if the rest of our body is moving as well. Go for a run, bike ride, take an exercise class, lift some weights, play some tennis. And then, when you come back sweaty, tired and well-exercised, you can talk about it on your facebook.

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