Newest Weight Loss Methods Tackle Sitting Disease

Sitting Disease - News That Is Not New

Sitting disease is not a new phenomenon. It is just one that has acquired a new name recently. It was first mentioned in 2013 in the Dallas Business Journal, directed at business people who spend too much time sitting. Now it seems that almost everyone else is sitting too much, too.

Dr. James A. Levine, Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ, leads the research on this topic. He has stated that, "there are 34 chronic diseases and conditions associated with excess sitting." The big ones include some of the usual suspects: cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes. The list also includes cognitive decline (Alzheimer's Disease, dementia), disability in people over 60, and death from cancer. Not just getting cancer... death from cancer.

The icing on this sedentary cake is life expectancy. Excessive sitting drops about 2 years off of your life, on average. A few experts have been referring to sitting disease as the 'new smoking' due to the similarities in their respective negative health consequences.

No wonder that Dr. Levine has come so far in his work on the topic that he now confidently says that, "Excessive sitting is a lethal activity."

Fortunately, sitting disease is easily treatable... by just standing up!

Keys to Healthy Standing

Of course, there are some details that you should know for getting the full benefits of staying upright and active. In a nutshell, they revolve around two issues: how often to stand and how long to stay standing at a time.

Negative physiological changes happen within a single hour of sitting. Specifically, an hour of physical inactivity suppresses a key skeletal muscle enzyme, called lipoprotein lipase (LPL), that is crucial for controlling the breakdown of plasma triglycerides and for driving up the level of HDL cholesterol. Just an hour of sitting reduces the activity of skeletal muscle LPL by about 90 percent. ALL of the negative consequences of physical inactivity start right then and there.

The key lesson is that you must stand up at least once during every hour waking hour.

How long should you stand up at a time? Dr. Levine and his colleagues have found that standing up for 10 minutes at a time is beneficial. That's it.

The key lesson is that you must stand up for at least 10 minutes at a time.

What you do while standing is almost irrelevant. Some folks walk around. Others jump onto a trampoline for some light bouncing (this offers the bonus of enhancing the flow of your lymphatic system... very important).

At the high end, business executives have bought into the concept of a desk treadmill so they can walk while they work. Dr. Levine invented such a treadmill exactly for that purpose.

Get creative. Read a book for 10 minutes while standing; put your laptop on a box while you work; take short walks around the office; stand up while watching TV or talking on the phone. The possibilities are endless.

By the way, this is where the so-called 'bachelor style of eating' works well... I.e., standing over the kitchen sink while you eat. This is great if you eat alone, although maybe not so much for a family.

The bottom line is that, whatever you do that has you sitting for an hour or more, then you have been sitting too much. You really must get out of your chair for 10 minutes at a time out of every hour - 50 minutes of sitting and 10 minutes of standing. This is a very simple strategy that provides tremendous health benefits, and it works almost anywhere you are (maybe not at the movies?).

Regular Exercise Does Not Help - Go NEAT Instead

If you have suppressed your LPL enzyme by sitting too much, no amount of exercise will get it to make up for lost time. Exercise doesn't put LPL into any kind of high-speed mode that lets you catch up from excessive sitting.

The only way to overcome the ills of sitting is by standing up or moving around every hour. Remember, LPL activity drops by about 90 percent within an hour of sitting. It takes only 10 minutes of standing to reinvigorate it.

The jargon that the medical folks like Dr. Levine have come up with for this 'non-exercise' is NEAT: non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Thermogenesis is just a fancy way for saying generating heat, which to most folks means using calories. The concept of NEAT has become so significant to Dr. Levine that he has published several research articles and two books on the subject.

Dieting To Lose Fat Does Not Work - Here Is The Solution

What does "dieting" mean?

For just about all people, the term "dieting" means not eating the foods they love, eating smaller portions, and worst of all skipping meals. I hope we all know by now that dieting is hard and does not work for the long-term fat loss we all want.

Let's take a closer look at the 3 methods of dieting, the side effects, and the proper way to deal with your diet.

Not Eating The Foods You Love To Lose Fat

You probably love the same foods as me and most Americans, over- processed, high in fat and sugar, and oversized portions. We need those over sized portions because the food we are eating is not the nutrition our bodies need. They are just empty calories that our body stores as fat.

If you are trying to change your whole diet at once, that can be just as hard as quitting smoking. I tried and the side effects of cutting all sugar were quite painful. I lasted 3 weeks. The key here is to add a couple healthy things to your diet and cut back on the unhealthy stuff. An example would be to add fruit as a snack during the day instead of doughnuts but only every other day. Then add one more day of fruit a week with an occasional doughnut.

Whatever you do, do not call it cheating. You can only cheat while dieting, and that is not what you are doing. You are changing your diet to have better health, a lighter, thinner body, more energy, higher self-esteem, and the knowledge you are doing what is best for you and your family.

Eating Smaller Portions To Lose Fat

Leaving the table hungry is not the way to go. This is one of the things that make dieting very difficult. It will put you in a bad mood because you feel like you are punishing yourself for doing what you love, eating. After a few days of being hungry and weak, you rebel against yourself and eat a whole pizza by yourself. This leads to guilt and resentment and low self-esteem.

When changing your diet to nutritious foods, it is better to eat more often with smaller portions. There is a whole list of foods you can find that are healthy, low calorie and full of the nutrients your body needs. The more your body gets used to getting those nutrients, the less hungry you will feel. Personally, my favorite snack that keeps me away from the vending machine is cocktail peanuts.

I eat a handful about every hour and this event helps to eat a smaller lunch. That may be more than is recommended but I do have a labor intensive job that burns a lot of calories. I do still eat fast food on occasion, but it will just be one small sandwich off the value menu, such as a chicken sandwich. Never get the fries!

So eating smaller portions of great tasting healthy foods will keep your metabolism going and the fat burning.

Skipping Meals To Lose Fat

Skipping meals is the worst dieting method you can do to lose fat. Eating food actually boosts the metabolism and keeps your body burning calories. This also gives you energy to do more with your day and burn more fat. When you skip meals bad things happen to your body. Your metabolism, the fat burning mechanism, slows down to conserve energy to keep your organs working. If you only eat once a day, your body will store just about the whole meal to keep your body going during the times of no new fuel. It stores this as fat.

For breakfast, I either drink a whey protein drink, about 170 calories, or eat a spinach salad, about 230 calories, but both give me a lot of energy, healthy unsaturated fats, vitamins and micro-nutrients for healthy body function. Give yourself this one boost in the morning and you will see a difference.

If you find that you only like eating pastries or doughnuts for breakfast, try switching them out a couple days a week to start. It will take time for your taste buds to adjust to your new diet. That is what the protein drink is for. My sweet chocolate fix for the day! Just remember that to lose fat, you want less carbs and more protein. To gain weight, eat more carbs and less protein. Go look at the best foods that burn fat on my blog. Just click on the link below this article.