Telly – exercises for the advert breaks

18% of people who watch less than two hours of TV a day are obese.

30% of those who watch more than 4 hours are obese.

Not enough? OK, how’s this:

Overweight participants who cut their daily TV time in half (from an average of 5 hours to 2.5 hours) burned an extra 119 calories a day. And a recent study of people who successfully lost weight found that 63 percent of them watched less than 10 hours of TV a week.

Yikes.

Listen, I love a little telly-time too. So what can you do to improve this? First, make sure you’re posture’s perfect – no slumping like kitty up there. (We’ll talk about this later in the week, too). Second, try some exercises during the advert breaks – yes, that means without fast-forwarding, those with Sky+. I’ve linked to some ideas in the sources, below. Don’t be an armchair athlete – someone who watches sport on the TV but never takes part. If you can ‘earn’ your programmes by paying for it during the breaks, everyone gains – and you still get to watch Sherlock, too.

• Tesco Magazine | Exercise your way through TV advert breaks
• Body + Soul | Exercises for the advert breaks
• Eat This, Not That | Lean people watch less TV
• Greatist | How much TV is too much?