SOS: Day 56
August 26, 2011 
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Day 56
Contacts, nudges, phone call cliques.
Genevieve Clark: getting her nudge to exercise in 1915? Unlikely. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.
It turns out there’s evidence that a simple phone call can dramatically increase your adherence to exercise, according to a Standford University study (and recently detailed in this article).
Over 200 previously sedentary people were divided into three walking groups: no phone contact, a personal call, or a computerized call. After a year, those who received calls from a live person were up 78% in their exercise minutes. The computerized calls group doubled theirs. But the control group, sans phone calls, were only up 28% ).
Calls came about three weeks apart. Participants were asked how long they’d walked and how they planned to increase their time. They also received encouragement and congratulations.
An upcoming study, to be published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, is set to report that two exercise counseling sessions over a period of three months, quadrupled exercise levels–even nine months after contact ended. The poor control group didn’t improve at all.
It’s all about accountability, isn’t it? Why not organize a phone call round robin among your friends to report how your SOSing is going?
Don’t forget: continue to track your steps.
SOS Month 2
What to do so far:
In case you missed a day, the reminders below are clickable.
Mitigate your snoring.
Work out to dance DVDs.
Exercise for the fun of it.
Remember lesser-known benefits of exercise.
Record body measurements.
Accept setbacks.
Get younger.
Decrease your chemical load.
Review your food diary.
Eat 2 ounces of nuts daily.
Diets don’t work; lifestyle changes do.
On the Ides, I’d rather be…
Release anger and hostility.
Wear a pedometer daily.
Get 8 hours of sleep.
Eat mindfully.
Dress thin.
Add 1 minute/day and 1 day/week to your workout.
Learn lessons from your own story.
Collect pedometer data for a week.
Quantify for your health.
Write down pedometer data.
Set up accountability calls with your friends.
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