How to drop pounds with all-day activities, not exercise

[Daniel E.]

Q&A: How to drop pounds with all-day activities, not exercise
By Nanci Hellmich
USA TODAY
Jan. 21, 2009

Many overweight people in the USA have "sitting disease" and would lose weight if they did more walking, standing and moving around during the day, says endocrinologist James Levine of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Levine is talking about increasing your NEAT, or "non-exercise activity thermogenesis," which accounts for much of your movement and therefore caloric expenditure throughout the day. These are activities such as walking to lunch, pacing while on the phone, cleaning the house, cooking, climbing stairs, standing while you talk to a friend, folding laundry. It doesn't include the calories you burn during intense exercise: jogging, aerobics or power walking.

NEAT is a crucial part of people's total caloric expenditure, but it has been leeched out of people's lives, robbing them of using 1,500 to 2,400 calories a day and contributing to excess weight and obesity, says Levine, a professor of medicine at Mayo who has studied calorie-burning for 20 years. He has written a new book, Move a Little, Lose a Lot, with Selene Yeager to help people find new ways to move more and lose weight.

Q: What do you mean that we have "sitting disease"? What can be done about that?
A: A desk-bound man or woman takes only 5,000 to 6,000 steps a day. That compares with about 18,000 steps a day for the average man and 14,000 for a woman in an Amish community.

On a typical weekend, it's possible to use many of 40 different NEAT-squelching devices: alarm clock, cellphone, BlackBerry, home computer, microwave, remote controls, electric toothbrush, snow blower, lawnmower.

We need to move more throughout the day. The key is to find what you enjoy doing.

Simple examples include a quick walk around the block before your morning shower; a 30-minute walk at lunch; having a couple of walk-and-talk meetings during the day (research shows you'll think better); pacing when you're talking on the phone; taking a 15-minute catch-up walk after work with your partner; walking with your children and listening to their music with them; doing some active volunteering such as taking a stressed mom's children out for a walk or bringing a meal to an elderly person.

If you incorporate some of these ideas into your day, you burn an extra 500 to 1,000 calories.

Q: You encourage people to walk more at any speed for weight loss and maintenance. Does that really work?
A: If we all had two hours of free time in our lives to put on our warm clothes and go on a brisk walk, that would be brilliant, but in reality, we don't have the time.

When we perform studies to examine how normal people walk as they go about their business during the day, we find that the velocity is about 1.1 mph. Our research suggests that weaving this kind of walking throughout the day can help overweight people shed far more pounds than they ever dreamed possible.

If you simply convert sedentary TV time to active time, you could lose 50 pounds a year. Even marching in place or using a $50 stepper while watching your favorite programs would burn thousands of calories in a year and translate to a big weight loss and better-looking body.

Q: Does fidgeting promote weight loss?
A: In terms of calorie burn or weight loss, fidgeting doesn't help you. The research we conducted demonstrated that the secret to burning fat was to get up, move and walk. We found that people can increase their NEAT by 800 calories a day and resist gaining weight, even when they eat too much. At first the world's press mistook NEAT for being a fidgeting phenomenon, but we pointed out that you would never be able to fidget enough to burn 800 calories a day.

Fidgeting is your body's way of telling you to get up and move. Our body wants to move, but the environment suppresses it.

Q: Research suggests that some people seem hard-wired to be more sedentary than others. Can people change that?
A: The behavior research suggests that if you adopt a change for about 21 (or 20) consecutive days, your brain adapts. So if you work more NEAT into your life for 21 days, it becomes a dynamic and energized way of living that naturally flows through your day.

 

[Daniel E.]

In a Chair? Take a Break
RealAge.com
June 2009

If you spend large chunks of your day in a sitting position, then listen up: It’s time for a break. From your chair.

Whether you’re riding in a car, working at a desk, or watching TV, you need to break up your repose -- and do it often. Get up, walk around, stretch your legs. Do something. Anything. If you don’t, your longevity will take a hit. Even if you are a regular exerciser.

Sitting Get You Down?
Huh? Even if you exercise? You got it. In a 12-year study, folks who sat for most of their day had higher mortality rates. Even if they also exercised for 30 minutes every day, the chair dwellers couldn’t bring their mortality rate down to the level of someone who sat for only a quarter of the day. Yikes. Find out why you don’t have to work up a huge sweat to reduce your cancer risk through exercise.

Your Sitting Solution
So what to do? First, you should still exercise. Among people who sat for the same percentage of time each day, the active people (read exercisers) lived longer than the inactive people. Second, aim for longer periods of activity during your leisure time. The more you sit, the more you should exercise when you’re done sitting. Finally, in addition to taking regular breaks from sitting, make the act itself less sedentary with these tips:

• Try this chair-workout video.
• Do these in-your-chair crunches.
• Find a way to fidget.

Here’s an active leisure-time hobby that can lead to a longer life.

Reference:
Sitting time and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Katmarzyk, P. T. et al., Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 2009 May;41(5):998-1005.

 

[Daniel E.]

I don't believe in lazy
by Michelle Segar, PhD, MPH
August 2009

At lunch last week, my friend Isabella told me that she wasn’t exercising because she’s just lazy. My response? “Isabella, I don’t believe in lazy”. I’ve found that when women say they are too lazy to exercise it’s usually a smoke screen for what’s really going on.

The first reason women conclude they are lazy is because they are simply tired from successfully juggling and achieving A LOT. Being tired and needing to relax is very different than laziness. The challenge for women who feel too tired to exercise is to learn how to determine when resting and relaxing their bodies is what they most need (something that is really important to do at times) and when they’d be better off doing some form of physical activity to increase their energy and improve their mood.

The second reason that women erroneously conclude they are lazy is because they compare themselves against too high of a standard. We were told for most of our adult lives that exercise had to be hard and vigorous to be of benefit. On top of that, when we see some of our friends training for marathons or spinning every day, something that confirms our suspicion that we are lazy!

Contrary to what fitness companies want us to believe, newer research shows us that exercise doesn’t have to be vigorous to be of benefit and that all types and durations of movement “count”. But regardless of science, if intense exercise is unappealing (which it is for most women in midlife, including myself much of the time) we won’t do it anyway.

Bottom line: There is no need to compare ourselves to anyone else when it comes to being physically active or feeling like we need to do it their way. (That would be like comparing what you like in bed with what others enjoy and then condemning yourself for not being like them!)

The fix? Just change the definition of exercise from what you think exercise SHOULD be (because that’s what others are doing) to one that incorporates the types of physical activities and movement that feels good TO YOU. By the way, what feels good to do will and should change based on how you feel on any given day and time. You will discover that the idea of being laziness becomes much less relevant. Not only will you not feel lazy but you’ll wind up doing more physical activity.

For more about what’s sabotaging your desire to exercise, check out my blog www.essentialsteps.net/blog

 

[Daniel E.]

An infographic:

Sitting is Killing You

 

[Daniel E.]

Office exercise: How to burn calories while you work - MayoClinic.com

 

[Daniel E.]

How Sitting All Day Is Damaging Your Body and How You Can Counteract It

 

[Daniel E.]

Sitting Puts People Age 60 and Older at Risk for Disabilities
Alexandra Sifferlin, Time.com
February 20, 2014

Add it to the list: new research shows that prolonged periods on your bum puts the elderly at risk for disabilities

We all know that sitting for long periods of time takes years off our lives, but now there’s another reason it’s getting us closer to our graves.

New research published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health reports that prolonged sitting puts people over 60 at a risk for disabilities. Elderly adults in this age group spend on average two-thirds of their days sedentary, which equates to about nine hours a day. The link between age and disability held even when researchers controlled for obesity, socioeconomic status, physical activity, and other health factors.

Here are some of the reasons not getting out of your chair can do you in.

1. Disabilities are more common among sedentary people: Researchers of the new study found that for every hour spent sedentary among people aged 60 and older was linked to a 50% greater chance of being disabled.

2. Sitting too long makes us overweight: People with more sedentary jobs are more likely to be overweight than people who sit less. Research suggests that since more jobs require people to sit at a desk, Americans are burning 120 to 140 less calories a day than they did 50 years ago.

3. You’re more likely to have a heart attack: Researchers studied the lifestyles and behaviors of more than 17,000 men and women over 13 years and discovered people who sit for the majority of their day have a 54% greater risk of dying from a heart attack.

4. It impacts your mental health: Women who reported more sitting outside of work in a 2012 survey also reported poorer mental health.

5. You’re at a greater risk for chronic disease: A survey of 63,048 Australian men found that men who sat for more than four hours a day were much more likely to suffer chronic ailments like heart disease and diabetes than men who sat for fewer.

6. Life expectancy is shorter: A 2011 study found that every hour of TV people watched after age 25 was linked to a deduction of 22 minutes from their overall life expectancy.

7. There’s a greater risk for kidney disease: A 2012 report found that people who sat less had a lower risk of kidney disease. The finding was especially prominent among women, who had a 30% lower risk of chronic kidney disease if they sat for only three hours during the work day.

8. Your risk of dying from colorectal cancer is greater: A 2013 study found that people with colorectal cancer who spent more of their free time sitting had a greater risk of dying from the disease.

 

[Retired]

So, that's why they say sitting is the "new smoking"...:concern:

 

[Daniel E.]

RSNG | Meet The Movement Coach Behind The Frampton Method And Learn How To Improve Posture, Flexibility And Wellbeing

www.rsng.com

‘The problem with sitting is the long periods of sedentary hours, with a body that has evolved to move. The second issue is that the chair is designed for comfort rather than how we are evolved to sit. If we want to see how we should sit we need look no further than the way children sit or how we sat as children. Children sit in a huge variety of positions on the floor, including on their “sit bones” and in a squat.’

‘Repetitive sitting down on chairs that starts at a very early age allows the body to relax into positions the floor would not allow, enabling the body to become soft, weak and tight. By spending a little bit of time every day undoing tightness in the body and working towards moving more in line with how we were evolved to move, we will reduce pain in the body and improve our long-term health.’

‘The most ideal way to sit on a chair is to sit on your sit bones rather than your bum muscles. The best way to accomplish this is to not lean back on the chair you are sat on. Sit forward and push your bum behind you — this flattens your lower back. The second thing you can do is raise your feet on books or a stool, so your hips are much lower than your knees. This mimics the squat position.’