Cooke to Head Fitness Effort

Lots of Keweenaw residents are out of shape, and William Cooke wants to change that. Cooke is the new Portage Health Foundation Endowed Professor of Preventive and Community Health at Michigan Tech. His goal is to make the concept of diet and exercise less forbidding. “My catch phrase is ‘eat less, move more,’ because it’s simple,” he explains. First, increase your activity by doing something you enjoy. “If you like to run, running is best for you. If you like to walk, walking is best for you, because the key to this ‘move more’ is consistency.” Then, he suggests cutting back on what you eat… but you don’t need to give up the things you love. “Don’t eat a whole pizza. Don’t eat a whole pasty – maybe share a pasty. Make a conscious effort to not eat as much as you normally would.” Cooke says drastic diets rarely work, because no one can stick to them. Along with his coursework and research at MTU, Cooke will be working with community organizations to try to spread the simple “move more, eat less” message. You can hear an entire interview with William Cooke on Sunday’s edition of Copper Country Today.