Avoiding a Sedentary Lifestyle

Our bodies are designed to move. Unfortunately, society is designed for us to sit. Most of us sit all day at work, sit while we drive to and from work, and then sit in front of the TV. All of this sitting is detrimental to our health. Prolonged sitting everyday can increase risks for diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breast and colon cancer and lead to poor mental health outcomes. Even if we dedicate 30 minutes a day, five days a week to exercise, risk for these diseases is still high when we sit the rest of the day. 

One way to reduce sedentary activities is to increase “NEAT” activity. NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This means any calories burned from non planned activities such as daily walking, standing, or fidgeting. 

In 2005, a study was conducted by Levine et al. that followed 20 self proclaimed “couch potatoes,” ten were obese and ten were not. Each person wore a device that measured activity for the day. After the study the activity devices were measured. It was found that the non obese participants moved two and a half hours more a day than the obese participants. The non-obese participants were not trying to move more, they just had more “NEAT” activity than the obese participants.

Increasing NEAT is not hard. It just requires a Plan of Action. Students from University of New Mexico developed a program called “Don’t Sit, Get Fit” this website contains different tips to reduce sedentary activity. 

Check out this website to find some tips for yourself: http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Pages/DoNotSitHome.html

Here are a few of the suggestions from the website:

When taking a coffee break, also walk around

After lunch, take a leisurely stroll to digest your food

Walk instead of drive whenever possible

Have the whole family take a walk after dinner

Stand up and move every time you take a water break at work

Wear a pedometer, strive for 10,000 steps a day

Walk your dog (or your cat) every day 

Stand up and move during commercial breaks

Vacuum more often- pushing that heavy vacuum around provides exercise and your house gets cleaned along the way!

Pace the sidelines at children’s ball games

Walk through the entire store before you start shopping

Walk to a co-workers desk instead of emailing or calling them

Find a new hobby that involves standing/walking/ or movement

When reading a book, get up and move every 6 pages

Unfortunately, we cannot only increase our NEAT activity to lose weight. We must dedicate at least 30 minutes a day to planned exercise in order to keep the weight off. The primary exercise we do should be aerobic exercise (cardio). This type of exercise should get the heart pumping and cause us to breathe harder. Examples include walking, running. swimming, hiking, and cycling. If you have sore or stiff joints, non-weight baring exercises (swimming, cycling) would be best to prevent injury or damage to the joints. Once an injury occurs, then exercise is out of the question, which can put weight loss on hold. 

When beginning an exercise program, focus should be on duration and frequency instead of intensity. This means you should set goals based on how often and how long you work out. The type of activity is less important in the beginning. For example, start out walking for 10 minutes 4 days a week. Once you have accomplished this goal, see if you can increase to 15 minutes 4 days a week. The next week try walking for 5 days. Continue to increase until you are able to exercise for a total of 300 minutes each week. 

Although aerobic exercise should be the primary focus, resistance training is also a must. Resistance training helps reduce the fat that accumulates around our middles. It also improves insulin sensitivity, lowers blood pressure, lowers bad cholesterol, and increases good cholesterol, increases bone mineral density, and increases strength, endurance, and power. Resistance training is any exercise that works your muscles, such as weight lifting, yoga, pilates, and gardening. If your muscles are sore the next day, you were successful. After our muscles are worked out, they increase their metabolic rate. This means they burn more calories by just being muscles. For every 2.2 pounds of muscle gained, our bodies burn an extra 21 calories a day. Each major muscle group should be trained two to three days a week. This includes you arms, legs, and abs. Try for 2-4 sets of 8-12 reps if your activity is weight lifting, push ups, sit up, or squats. 

Living a sedentary life is easy, but it leads to weight gain and disease development. Try your best to stay motivated to move more. Remember, some days will be harder than others, but every little bit helps.