If you are struggling with your weight, listen up. The work that Marc Hamilton, PhD and Dr. James Levine are doing points directly to one conclusion: Sitting down is your worst enemy. Even if you look at only healthy people who exercise regularly, the ones who sit the most have larger waistlines and have more unhealthy markers like higher blood pressures, higher blood sugar levels and more heart disease and cancers than those who sit less often. Even more proof that remaining in the seated position for too long adversely affects your waistline even if you exercise.
In fact, people who sit for more than three hours each day are just as fat whether they exercise or not. You may be thinking that this is just not possible; after all, the people who are exercising are burning more calories, so it follows that they should be thinner, right? Wrong. Hey baby, the numbers don’t lie. The problem is that we burn only a small percentage of calories during exercise. Most of the calorie-burning we do during the day happens not while we are “exercising,” but while we are just living our everyday lives.
When you spend most of that time sitting, your body’s metabolism is basically in hibernation mode. Sitting is one of the most inactive things you can do. You burn more calories standing around twiddling your thumbs or chewing gum than you do just sitting in a chair doing nothing. When you are seated, electrical activity in the muscles drops — “the muscles go as silent as those of a dead horse,” Hamilton says, which leads to a series of harmful metabolic effects. Your calorie-burning rate immediately plunges to a third of what it would be if you got up and walked. Insulin effectiveness drops within a single day, and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes rises. So does the risk of being obese. The enzymes responsible for breaking down lipids and triglycerides — for “vacuuming up fat out of the bloodstream,” as Hamilton puts it — plunge, which in turn causes the levels of good (HDL) cholesterol to fall.
In fact, people who sit for more than three hours each day are just as fat whether they exercise or not. You may be thinking that this is just not possible; after all, the people who are exercising are burning more calories, so it follows that they should be thinner, right? Wrong. Hey baby, the numbers don’t lie. The problem is that we burn only a small percentage of calories during exercise. Most of the calorie-burning we do during the day happens not while we are “exercising,” but while we are just living our everyday lives.
When you spend most of that time sitting, your body’s metabolism is basically in hibernation mode. Sitting is one of the most inactive things you can do. You burn more calories standing around twiddling your thumbs or chewing gum than you do just sitting in a chair doing nothing. When you are seated, electrical activity in the muscles drops — “the muscles go as silent as those of a dead horse,” Hamilton says, which leads to a series of harmful metabolic effects. Your calorie-burning rate immediately plunges to a third of what it would be if you got up and walked. Insulin effectiveness drops within a single day, and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes rises. So does the risk of being obese. The enzymes responsible for breaking down lipids and triglycerides — for “vacuuming up fat out of the bloodstream,” as Hamilton puts it — plunge, which in turn causes the levels of good (HDL) cholesterol to fall.
The average person can burn an extra 60 calories an hour just by standing. Now, you may not be able to stand all day, but if you incorporate one to five minutes of movements every hour that use upper and lower body strength, balance and flexibility in short bursts like the ones in this book, you are right back up there near that 60 calorie mark. These short bursts of movement also keep your body from going into that hibernation mode that happens when you sit without getting up for long periods of time. “But just avoid the chair is the simple recommendation, as much as you can,” according to Dr. Hamilton. Ok, so we’ve got all figured out now, right? The biggest problem with sitting for long periods is that you burn less energy, which makes it easier to gain weight and, conversely, harder to lose weight…or is it? There also seems to be a “physiology of inactivity” that has a cascading effect on lipids, enzymes and body chemistry that is detrimental to our health and may cause us to gain weight. So the problem is two-fold. Not only are we burning fewer calories as we sit but our body is producing-or not producing- chemicals, enzymes and fats that stymie our ability to stay lean and healthy.
This is where many people throw up their hands and say “I’m screwed, just dig a hole and I’ll jump in.” But there’s evidence that the solution to this problem may be a simple one. To find out more read Is Your Chair Killing You?
Sitting for extended periods of time is as bad for your health as smoking cigarettes. And exercising for 30-60 minutes a day isn’t enough to undo the damage from extended periods of sitting. Is Your Chair Killing You reveals shocking new research showing that sitting for long periods greatly increases your risk of developing obesity, heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer.
Our bodies were designed to move constantly over the course of the day, but most of us sit for hours a day at work and at home! Fitness and wellness expert and award-winning author Kent Burden has created brief, simple movements you can incorporate into your daily life to combat the damaging effects of sitting. These simple movements, done standing for 1-5 minutes each hour will burn calories, energize and refresh you, and you won’t even break a sweat; you’ll even improve your back pain. This book is a how-to for weight loss and disease prevention. Read this book–you’ll be healthier in as little as 8 minutes a day.
Our bodies were designed to move constantly over the course of the day, but most of us sit for hours a day at work and at home! Fitness and wellness expert and award-winning author Kent Burden has created brief, simple movements you can incorporate into your daily life to combat the damaging effects of sitting. These simple movements, done standing for 1-5 minutes each hour will burn calories, energize and refresh you, and you won’t even break a sweat; you’ll even improve your back pain. This book is a how-to for weight loss and disease prevention. Read this book–you’ll be healthier in as little as 8 minutes a day.
Nominated for the Dan Poynter Global Ebook Awards and won honorable mention at the Los Angeles Book Festival
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Genre – Non-Fiction
Rating – G
More details about the author
Website http://www.kentburden.com/
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