Stop Sitting Still

I admit that I have been spending more and more hours sitting. I always thought that walking would make up for it. But now a researcher says that sitting for a length of time shuts down fat metabolism and makes your muscles sluggish in burning fat when you finally do get up and exercise. He thinks the best solution is adding more non-exercise activity throughout the day to break up sitting times.

How can you build in more active time if your job is in front of a computer? When we bought a house last winter, we got a two-story house, which had all of my physical therapist friends appalled. Surely we would want a one-story for when we got old and crippled, like so many of their clients? No. I think the stairs are my physical therapy. When I want a glass of water, I have to get up and go downstairs and back upstairs to the computer. The same is true for any number of things, including a trip to the bathroom -- I use the one furthest from my home office. If everything was at hand, would I ever get out of my chair?

I use a Fit Disc as a seat cushion or exercise ball as a chair to get in some activation of my core and leg muscles while sitting. I haven't gone whole hog with a treadmill desk -- yet!
Photo © Wendy Bumgardner