A little creativity can go a long way in teaching today's students about the obesity epidemic and related cardiometabolic consequences of an unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyles. In fact, the possibilities are endless, so why not use everyone's favorite monsters to jazz things up a bit and call people to action using pop-culture plugs about zombies and vampires?! I had the opportunity to do just that on Saturday with my friend and colleague Siddhartha Angadi at the 14th Annual Building Health Lifestyles Conference in Tempe, Arizona, a conference run by College of Health Solutions students at ASU. Our talk was last and delivered some important messages about obesity prevention that not only reiterated important thoughts from the stellar line-up of speakers, but did it with a bit of flare and a serious sense of humor. Here are a few takeaways if you missed the talk.
First off, don't get caught sitting around in a zombie apocalypse because your best shot at escaping zombification is to out-walk or out-run these ravenous flesh-eating creatures. Sid shared that if you want to out-pace a brain-eating zombie you will need to clock in at around 3.1-4.3 miles per hour. Not too difficult, right?
What about those zombies that move really fast, like in "World War Z"?! Sid, had a solution for that too. Start your training today and build up your cardio-respiratory fitness so that you can shoot and scoot. This basically means that you run fast and then bring your heart rate down quick enough to have good aim. End result, you live to see another day as a human! There are even apps to help begin your training program so you can defeat even the toughest zombies. Check out the app "Zombies, run" here!
All that training is certainly going to require adequate fuel, which is where I came in. While many zombies crave brains (one might say Zombies are on Keto diets), human bodies prefer carbohydrate to fuel themselves throughout the day. So, don't believe all that is out there about Ketogenic diets because they aren't going to help you out-run zombies in the coming apocalypse. Look to carbohydrates that are rich in fiber. Not only will this help you peak in your cardio-respiratory performance, it will also keep your gut microbiome happy which is important if you want to live a long and healthy life. Want to learn more about gut microbes, shoot us an email or check out our current research here.
See you in the apocalypse!
Corrie
First off, don't get caught sitting around in a zombie apocalypse because your best shot at escaping zombification is to out-walk or out-run these ravenous flesh-eating creatures. Sid shared that if you want to out-pace a brain-eating zombie you will need to clock in at around 3.1-4.3 miles per hour. Not too difficult, right?
What about those zombies that move really fast, like in "World War Z"?! Sid, had a solution for that too. Start your training today and build up your cardio-respiratory fitness so that you can shoot and scoot. This basically means that you run fast and then bring your heart rate down quick enough to have good aim. End result, you live to see another day as a human! There are even apps to help begin your training program so you can defeat even the toughest zombies. Check out the app "Zombies, run" here!
All that training is certainly going to require adequate fuel, which is where I came in. While many zombies crave brains (one might say Zombies are on Keto diets), human bodies prefer carbohydrate to fuel themselves throughout the day. So, don't believe all that is out there about Ketogenic diets because they aren't going to help you out-run zombies in the coming apocalypse. Look to carbohydrates that are rich in fiber. Not only will this help you peak in your cardio-respiratory performance, it will also keep your gut microbiome happy which is important if you want to live a long and healthy life. Want to learn more about gut microbes, shoot us an email or check out our current research here.
See you in the apocalypse!
Corrie