Saturday, January 19 | 9 am - 12 pm | Most Recreation Centers 

Your journey to better health in 2013 begins with Passport to Fitness on Saturday, January 19! Check-in begins at 9 am and classes run through noon. There are five sites to choose from: Bayside, Great Neck, Kempsville, Princess Anne and Williams Farm. There's no admission cost, no membership requirement, and no advance registration!  

A variety of cardio, strength and mind & body classes will be offered, including our newest, most innovative equipment and formats. This is also a great way to meet a variety of our talented, certified instructors. Get a sneak peak at the schedules for each center!

As a special addition, we will be offering our newest water fitness format, Aqua Cross Training, at Williams Farm. Be sure to bring a bathing suit for this one and a mat if you plan to sample any of our mind & body classes.

Attendees can also enter into a drawing for a 30-day Unlimited Group Fitness Pass. You don't want to miss this event, so mark your calendar and plan to join us!

by Robert Arbogast, Fitness Specialist

Fitness professionals constantly preach about the link between a sedentary lifestyle and weight gain and how it affects every age group. New research is coming out that backs up that claim and the findings are even more dramatic than you might think.

Studies published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine and a journal for the European Association for the Study of Diabetes have found that enzymes that burn fat in the body go down by as much as 90% after sitting more than an hour. Furthermore, a longer stint of sitting slows the metabolism of glucose and has a negative effect on HDL (good) cholesterol. Both of these are risk factors for developing Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Here's some more not-so-good news. The studies found that individuals that are otherwise active are not immune to all of the pitfalls of sitting for long periods of time.

Now for the good news: there is a solution. Don't sit. Get up and stand! It sounds ridiculously simple, but it's true. Many work tirelessly, plugging away with technology at the fingertips. It's hard and important work, but it doesn't have to be done sitting down. The same could be said for sitting at home or out in social settings. For most of us, if we stood every time the phone rang or we got a text, our sit time would never reach an hour. What if we checked email or Facebook from a counter instead of a desk?

Technology is smaller and more portable than ever. Office furniture makers are seeing the possibilities. The large-scale manufacturers are starting to make height-adjustable workstations that allow you to stand or sit. Smaller companies are getting even more creative looking for a niche. One company makes a workstation that allows the worker to slide a treadmill in place and walk/work away. And companies that have large workforces like Google and Boeing are buying these work stations in hopes of creating a healthier workforce.

We can do this. Start thinking out of the box, or should I say, out of the chair. Let's take a stand in 2013 for better health!