{"id":15080,"date":"2016-08-24T15:47:28","date_gmt":"2016-08-24T19:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15080"},"modified":"2016-08-24T15:47:28","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T19:47:28","slug":"inside-aurora-fit-burg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-fit-burg\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: Fit Burg"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n

As you may have heard recently, Aurora has set the goal of being the most active and fit municipality in Canada.
\nIt\u2019ll certainly help to accomplish this now that we\u2019re no longer all adhered to our couches watching the 24\/7 televised Olympic coverage.
\nI\u2019m not sure how they\u2019re going to measure our success. Maybe they can embed some hidden weigh scales in front of the counters at our local donut shops.
\nBut regardless of how, or even if, it will be measured, how are we going to attain this lofty goal? I have some suggestions.
\nIt\u2019s said that sitting for extended periods of time is bad for one\u2019s health, and that it\u2019s best to stand and move around.
\nWho better to demonstrate this than our elected officials? So, let\u2019s get rid of the chairs around the Council table. Not only will this set an example for others, but tired calf muscles may result in improving the pace of typical meetings, and possibly reducing them in length.
\nNote that this wouldn\u2019t apply to the visitor\u2019s seating in the Chamber. Forcing people to both watch a Council meeting and to stand? Well, that\u2019s just cruel.
\nAnother documented way to improve your fitness is to park your car on the far side of a parking lot from where you\u2019re going, so you must walk a little further. After all, those extra steps add up.
\nLet\u2019s take this a little further, and kill two birds with one stone, by arranging for GO train parking to be located east of Bayview. It would eliminate all the parking hassles in the downtown core, and the extra hike to and from Industrial Parkway would burn off untold calories.
\nIf we need space for this extra parking, I understand a sizable chunk of property on Wellington will be available shortly in that area, when Magna moves out of Town.
\nAurora is well known for its annual parades. But why is it that some participants get to ride in cars or sit on floats, when many others are walking?
\nLet\u2019s level the playing field and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by making the floats people powered. As an added benefit, a parade member would certainly keep warmer on a frosty November night if they had to push a seasonal sleigh full of elves, reindeer and toys up the hill towards Wellington.
\nA final opportunity to improve fitness levels has been made available by the Pokemon Go craze that has swept Aurora.
\nIn this activity, players find and capture mythical creatures on their electronic devices at specific landmarks in Town. This has been lauded for getting people, if not off of their electronic devices, at the very least outside.
\nBut it doesn\u2019t get them very active.
\nTo counter that, they should be made to feel the effects of physically capturing them. This could be done by combining the program with a heart rate measurement device so that the Pokemon characters can be caught only after an accelerated heart rate has been reached. Say, 20% over the person\u2019s usual resting rate.
\nParticipants could find the creatures, but their gadget would only capture them after the user had completed some jumping jacks, or run on the spot, or other similar cardio-based activity.
\nAn added benefit is that it would provide not only entertainment to those watching them, but a health boost to them as well. After all, laughing is well known as an excellent form of exercise.<\/p>\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston As you may have heard recently, Aurora has set the goal of being the most active and fit municipality in Canada. It\u2019ll certainly help to accomplish this now that we\u2019re no longer all adhered to our couches watching the 24\/7 televised Olympic coverage. I\u2019m not sure how they\u2019re going to measure our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3Ve","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-30 12:19:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}