The Dangers of Sitting All Day!!

     "Sitting is the New Smoking" is the headline that flashed across my computer screen, and well it didn't shock me all that much. I mean I have known for a while that sitting for most of your day can be very harmful and dangerous to your health, but the part that intrigued me was comparing it to smoking. So of course I had to do my own research. 

      When I did my research I was shocked to find even if you are a runner or workout everyday, sitting for long periods of time, like a desk for 8 hours, can negate your healthy lifestyle, and still cause you to die prematurely. I'm sure you have heard in the news sitting all day has been linked to increased risks of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and even depression. Experts have even labels this as a modern day health epidemic called the "Sitting Disease". But I'm also sure you have heard that as long as you were active 60 minutes a day you would be fine, well now that is not the case. You can still meet the current physically active guidelines while also being sedentary for the most part of the day. That is why it is compared to smoking, because smoking is bad for you even if you get lots of exercise, and so it sitting too much.

      In a 2012 study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, researchers reported that people spent an average of 64 hours a week sitting, 28 hours standing, and 11 hours milling about (non-exercise walking), whether or not they exercised the recommended 150 minutes a week. That's more than nine hours a day of sitting, no matter how active they otherwise were. "We were very surprised that even the highest level of exercise did not matter squat for reducing the time spent sitting," says study author Marc Hamilton, Ph.D., professor and director of the inactivity physiology department at Pennington Biomedical Research Center. In fact, regular exercisers may make less of an effort to move outside their designated workout time. Our bodies are designed to move, after sitting for an extended period of time, the body shuts down at the metabolic level. When your leg muscles are immobile, your circulation is slow, and you use less of your blood sugar and burn less fat, which increases your risk of diabetes and heart disease.A study of 3,757 women found that for every two hours they sat in a given work day, their risk for developing diabetes went up seven percent, which means their risk is 56 percent higher on days they sit for eight hours. And a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology reports that a man who sits more than six hours a day has an 18 percent increased risk of dying from heart disease and a 7.8 percent increased chance of dying from diabetes compared with someone who sits for three hours or less a day. 

So this is a lot of information, facts and figures, and if you have read my site before you know we are all about educating you and then finding the solutions to the issue. So you are probably reading this and saying "I don't have a choice, I have to sit at work all day", so we found some solutions if you have to be sitting that helps increase your activity and helps decrease the risk for health problems and even death.

• Activity Breaks-Interrupt your sedentary time as often as possible, make frequent posture changes, even breaks as short as a minute can help decrease your risk.
• Put Down the Phone-If you need to speak with someone at the office, instead of calling there desk, why not just walk over to their desk. It gets you out of your chair and walking for a few minutes. 
• Active Lunch-After you have sat all morning, and will all afternoon, don't you dare at lunch. Have a lunch ready that can be enjoyed on the go, and take a walk on your lunch. If you have a health club in the building, eat you lunch before or after and walk on the treadmill for the remaining time.
• Ask your employer about getting a Treadmill Desk- Which is a treadmill at a low speed under a higher desk, so you can walk at a slow speed all day, while working. It helps you keep active, and not be in sedentary state for your whole day.

Bottom line is what we believe in our core here at IFGT that a active, healthy lifestyle is the best kind of lifestyle. Do not negate all the hard work you do staying fit and active, by just wasting it away sitting all day at work. Use our suggestions above, and come up with your own creative ways to get your booty out of that chair!!