You work out almost every day – strength training, high-intensity cardio and some circuits thrown in on some days for fat-burning. That’s a good thing, but according to a new study, it’s not enough to work out in the morning and stay glued to your seat the rest of the day. Research has already shown the health consequences of sitting too much – a greater risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and premature death. It’s not a pretty picture. Plus, there’s more bad news. You’re not exempt just because you do a structured workout. Here’s why.
Do Women Who Work Out Sit More?
Researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center asked 91 middle-aged and older women to wear a monitoring device to measure their daily activity for a week. Most of the women met the requirement of getting 30 or more minutes of structured exercise on most days – and some exceeded it. In other words, these were women committed to staying fit. Despite this, many were spending most of the rest of their day sitting – up to nine hours at a time in some cases.
Why is this a bad thing? Research shows that people who sit for more than 6 hours a day are at higher risk for health problems and premature death even if they do a formal workout every day. In other words, a daily workout doesn’t make up for long periods of time plopped down in a chair. Prolonged sitting is a growing problem as people have the technology to get things done without moving around. Keep track of how long you sit in front of a computer every day or behind the wheel of a car. For most people, it adds up to a substantial amount of time.
The theory is that sitting too long ramps up lipoprotein lipase activity in adipose tissue so that more fat is stored, whereas physical activity decreases lipoprotein lipase activity in adipose tissue and sends fat to muscle tissue where it can be used for energy. Sitting for long periods of time causes other harmful effects – it decreases HDL-cholesterol, the heart-protective kind, increases triglycerides and reduces insulin sensitivity – all of which increase the risk of metabolic syndrome, a precursor to type 2-diabetes.
What’s the Solution?
Move around more during the day. It’s easy to feel so good about working out that you “take it easy” for the rest of the day or you simply lose track of how much you’re sitting. When you’re at the office, set a timer as a reminder to get up and move around or stretch, if that’s all you have time to do. The key is to break up long periods of sitting with short activity breaks. Here are some suggestions:
- Walk around when you’re talking on the phone. Thank goodness for cordless phones!
- Wear a pedometer to monitor the number of steps you’re taking during the day. Aim for 10,000.
- Stop being so efficient when you do tasks. When you’re moving laundry from the laundry room to your closet, carry a small amount at a time to get more steps out of it.
- Use a portion of your lunch hour to take a short walk.
- Forget elevators. Tell yourself the only way to the next floor is the stairs.
- Keep a pair of dumbbells at your desk, and do a few sets every hour.
- Wear casual shoes to work so you’ll feel motivated to move around.
- Elevate your desk and do your work standing instead of sitting. You’ll burn between 30 and 50 more calories an hour working on your feet than slumped over in a chair.
The Bottom Line?
Keep moving throughout the day, regardless of whether you did a heart-pumping workout before arriving at work. Sitting too long without taking a break is bad for you regardless of your fitness level.
References:
Science Daily. “Even Physically Active Women Sit Too Much, Study Finds”
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2012; 9 (1): 122 DOI: 10.1186/1479-5868-9-122.
Am. J. Epidemiol. (2010) 172 (4): 419-429.
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