I took one of my kids to the pediatrician the other day and they had a leaflet about avoiding obesity. Since I'm obese, I'm always interested in ways to help my kids. One thing that jumped out at me was no more than 2 hours of screen time a day. Well, my kids are limited in the amount of screen time they get, but what about me?!

I need to cut way back on my screen time.

How about you?

Are you a World of Warcraft fanatic? Do you know more about John and Kate + 8 than you do about your own family? Are you're chatting up your cyber friends when you could be walking the dog? Does the cushion of your office chair or living room recliner have an indentation in the shape of your butt?! If so, join me!

Let's set personal goals for how much screen time we allow ourselves. Of course there are exceptions. If you're a student doing a term paper, or if you work in front of a computer all day, etc. But I'm talking about LEISURE screen time.

I hardly watch any TV, but the internet is my hobby, and I need another one. I should be able to do everything I need to do in an hour on the internet, so my goal:

1 hour per day maximum on the computer. Eek, I can feel the panic set in just saying that!

What's your goal? Where do you struggle? What will you do with your extra time? Set a goal, Log your minutes, or just drop in and let us know how you're doing.

I think this is a great challenge. I work at a computer all day and honestly, can do most of my "social" internet stuff in downtime at work. An hour a day at home is really all I need, too.

I'll give it a shot!

(I've given up sugar, dairy, grains, and caffeine....I'm sure I can give up my internet )

~Onyx

Yikes! Giving up the computer? OMG! Lets limit tv to 1 hour and computer to 2 hours.


This makes giving up sugar look easy!

I feel like my 60-90 minutes a day, every day, in the gym more than makes up for my 8 hours at work/2-3 hours at home "screen time" so I'll pass. Gym is really cutting into my online time! Also it's cutting into some other hobbies...but that's OK.

I've been thinking about this myself. Increasing exercise has decreased my "free" time at home and now my house is going to h*((. If I cut way down on TV I could keep up with things better. And most of what I watch is like junk food--fun at the time but not really satisfying in the long run. So, yes count me in.

Nah. I lurve my computer screen time I get my exercise in every day, my house is clean, I spend time with my kids, pets, hubby and doing my hobbies. I'll keep it

Last year when I began working on losing weight, I had a plan to increase my NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis - basically all the stuff we do to actively burn calories that isn't formal exercise). It involved periods of standing at my work computer rather than sitting down all day. The reason for doing this is basically to burn extra calories: One hour of standing versus sitting burns an extra 40 to 60 calories for a person my size. And that one hour is equivalent to about 5 pounds of fat in one year's time.

When I started, I could barely do an hour or two per day of standing before my whole body ached. Gradually over the months I worked up to being able to do about 3 hours daily by October. Now I'm at a consistent 5 hours per day of standing at my computer at work...usually listening to a podcast or music as I work, which gets me moving a little extra and burning more calories. This means I'm using about an extra 250 calories now per day, equivalent to about 25 pounds of fat in one year's time.

Soon I will be converting our home computers to standing stations too, so that when my husband and I do use them (which is usually at least a couple of hours every evening for me), we will again burn extra calories.

So, if you can't find a way to cut down your screen time, perhaps converting your screen time from sitting to standing is another way to make it work for you.

(All that said, I only sit down to watch TV and really veg out about once every two weeks now, and I'm not planning to give that up )

I've had this on my mind a lot. I will come back to it tonight!

Man, I did not do well yesterday. I guess it's like going on a diet-- oh well, I've already been on this long... may as well blow it off. I'm doing it today though. 1 hour tops!

OK, I think I'm going to have to work up to my one hour goal. Let's start with 2 hours, and work down from there.

I think I'm still in the contemplation stage of this habit change!

1 hour of TV the last 2 nights (not counting a Spanish tutorial program that I counted as homework) and I cleaned out my TIVO season passes to reflect only the shows I want to "spend" my 7 hours a week on.

Good for you. I did better yesterday too. Weekends are easier because I'm busy.

OK, I cleaned my house, so I'm not using the internet to procrastinate, woot! Also started a new book which should help too. I did well this weekend. I probably wasn't on an hour the whole weekend. Going for one hour max today.

How did everyone else do?

Ditto.
I only have two must see televisions shows and I am not giving those up either.
My kids are pretty well rounded on their own and since the tv and computer are always in my line of site, I know exactly what they are watching/doing and how long they are doing it for. Besides, other then the occasional Cartoon Network show (I personally can't wait for the next season of "Total Drama Island...LOL!), most of what they watch is either educational or infotainment. (Like "MythBusters")

I do like the idea of finding ways to burn extra calories while I do use the computer or watch tv. When I watch "Days of Our Lives", I usually have my hand weights near by. Sometimes I'll exercise my arms, or walk in place while I watch. I never thought about doing something while I was at the computer.