More ways to avoid the health hazards of sitting too much....

Today's Post:  Friday, 8-10-2012

1.  The good news first:

You will be dramatically healthier if you do both some strength training AND some interval cardio in every week and do one or the other on most days of every week.

If you do these exercises first thing or nearly first thing each morning, it can be more doable and in fact it IS doable for most people.

This is particularly true because if you are short time to do a half hour some days, you can just do part of your routine or half of it that day.

But the health effects remain! 

I can cut the last 4 minutes of my leg exercises from 25 to 21 when needed.  I can cut my strength training from 30 minutes to 15 minutes since the most important and vigorous exercises are in that first half.  And, with extra chores each Friday morning, I only do my 4 part abdominal workout which is just 6 minutes to do.

This means every single day I get 2 minutes or more of vigorous exercise.  But even on a day I had to cut back to just that two minutes, I get 40 % of more of the health benefits! 

I usually get 100 % of my exercises done and rarely get less than 75%.  But I can cut back a session or two or even skip some rarely when I have to.  So I find it totally doable.

So most days I do fit in the whole exercise session without needing to delete any of it.

So doing enough exercise to avoid being weak, to be decently fit, and get dramatic health benefits IS doable.  And, it likely is for you; and it is for most people.

2.  Here’s the bad news though:

There are three major problems if that’s all you can do and you sit too much every day.

a)  Your disease protection from exercise is only partial if you sit for too many hours each day.  (And sitting a lot without any exercise is deadly.)

The worst one is that if you still sit for 6 to 12 hours or more each day between work and home every day single day as most of us do now, the health protection from that good exercise program is far more partial than I or anyone else once thought.

Instead of being 90% + protected from heart disease as you would be if you also walked around as much each day as most people used to do 100 years ago or more, you might only be 55% protected – because you simply sit too darned much!

(I overcome that with supplements to some degree.  But I’d love to upgrade my protection anyway.)

One study found that people who sit more than 6 hours a day increased their rate of death from any cause by 37% for women and 18% for men.

A different study of people over 45 that lasted 11 years found that people who sat over 11 hours a day had a 40% increased risk of dying the first 3 years of the study alone.

Preventive medicine and exercise specialist for the Stanford Center for Disease Prevention and professor of emeritus of the Stanford University School of Medicine, William Haskell, said directly regular exercise “probably doesn’t wipe out all of the negative health consequences” of sitting 12 or more hours a day as many people do now.  He did also say that at least exercising was much better than doing nothing!

(We cover 3 solutions at the end of this post.)

b)  There is also research on how many calories a week it takes to stay healthy.

The good news there is that even a tiny walking total or comparable amount of exercise that burns 500 or 600 calories a week gives you a full 40% of the protection of an ideal exercise program that burns 2800 to 4200 calories a week.

This proves William Haskell right by the way.  It’s dramatically better for you to do even this tiny amount of exercise each week than none at all.

But what if you want 100 % protection or close to it?!

With my schedule, I’m not able to walk much.   100 to 200 calories a week from walking is likely what I average.  But I do add 1000 to 1100 calories a week with my morning exercises.

So I almost always get 1200 calories a week of exercise and walking totaled together.

That, however, is at least 1600 calories a week short of the 2800 calories a week for best health results.  And, it’s 800 calories a week needed for the 2,000 calories a week needed for very good health results.

But there is no more room to add more hours exercising to my life.  I have to work and need to drive there and to run errands by car.  I need some quiet time at home to read when I’m not at work or running errands.  And, I’m already using up some of my time each day exercising.

This is even more true for most people.  People have second jobs and children to tend and more!

(We cover 3 solutions at the end of this post.)

c)  We posted yesterday on the many reasons that regular exercise is essential for fat loss and keeping off the fat you lose.

As with health even a little bit of exercise each week helps.  And most people have time for interval cardio and strength training that burn calories after you stop actually exercising each day and build muscle so you avoid losing muscle plus the muscle you add burns extra calories.

But how many calories a week of exercise gets the best fat loss results?

We actually know!

The ongoing study of people who have lost over 30 pounds and kept it off shows that such people get an average of a bit over 2800 calories of exercise each week!

Notice that’s 1600 calories or more than from exercise each week than I have time to do!

I never gained the 70 or more pounds of fat people my size who sit as much as I do often do.  That’s because I eat right and exercise.  I’ve also lost 30 pounds and have kept off over 20 pounds of that. 

But if what if I could do another 1600 to calories each week of exercise instead of sitting still for hours?

If I could do that while I read or work and people who watch too much TV could also, that might just be doable!

2.  The 3 pieces of good news is that there are now three ways to do this.

The best of these 3 methods still needs some upgrades to make it more doable for many more people and cost far less.

But these methods exist at all now.

And, until very recently they did not exist.

a)  The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper now has a weekly Health section.  Two days ago on Weds, 8-8-2012, they highlighted an internet related start up, Kismetrics, with many software people most of who are well under 35.

To help people avoid sitting AND spend less money, they simply set out their computer work stations on high tables and spent less on desks and chairs.  People there stand while they work.

To some degree that works.  Their people report less back problems or even having them go away.  And you shift positions and burn calories more while standing than while sitting. 

The article also says bigger more established and comparable companies here in the Silicon Valley such as Google and Intuit are trying them.

For some younger people this may help.  And it certainly can save money who have these younger employees willing to try something different.

But to me this is a bit of help for some people but NOT a good solution for most of us.

People who are older or overweight or worse – OR both as many people now are likely would be unwilling to stand all day while working or unable to continue it if they tried it.

Worse, it’s NOT a long term solution.  Dentists as a profession recently went from standing to do their work to sitting while they work because the dentists who stood for years and decades all usually developed varicose veins from standing too much!

Lastly, Dr William Haskell noted that the low calorie use of this has resulted in no studies whatever showing that standing while at work helps with fat loss.

b)  The second method is a bit similar.  The best good news is that it IS at your desk exercise – not just standing there. 

The even better news is that using it while you work it DOES result in fat loss!

Conceptually it’s similar. You WALK on a treadmill while working on a high desk.

Steelcase, the office supply and desk company, makes the already set up for you version.  They call theirs the “Walking Desk”

The two pieces of bad news here are that:

It has the same problems that standing too much does if you keep using it!

& It costs about $4,000.  Ouch!

The walking desk DOES get some sales since the need for what it does is so great.

But this is not close to the universal solution most people can use that we now so badly need.

c)  The third solution is potentially the best for many people.

It’s new and is available now.

(See http://www.activoffice.net/ .)

Bryan Wassom of Pleasanton, California, despite being a regular runner sat enough that he had more belly fat than he wanted.

(This is something a lot of people have now – including me!)

So, he set up a recumbent bike and desk combination in his home office.  He rode it for 9 months and found he lost 18 pounds of fat off his tummy.

WOW!

But even though he is now set up to sell them although on a small scale at first, he hadn’t yet had anyone try it out in a regular work office.

So when I phoned him after the news in our local San Jose Mercury newspaper about it came out – AND I was quite enthusiastic about its potential, he asked if I would beta test one in exchange for having one to use at no charge.

Since they currently cost about $2,000 to buy and I’d not tried one, I immediately said yes.

There is significant good news and bad news.

Summary first:

If you can make it work for you at all, it may be the very best fat loss solution for at your desk exercisers ever found or likely to be.

It takes WAY to much room and makes your existing desk almost impossible to use as you were doing before.  It also costs too much for widespread use.

Good news first.

I have an at home set of tricycle style pedals on the floor that moves my knees too high to use at work but is effortless for me as a fit person to use.  At home though I keep falling asleep on our couch by the time I sit down there.  So I’ve not been able to use it much.  And between being that easy and hardly getting to it, it has had minimal effect on my fat loss.

The at my desk exercise bike is dramatically better for fat loss.  

Even on the lowest setting -- comparable to biking on well paved and level ground, it’s about four or five times more exercise to run.

You have to do more than just make the pedals go. 

You have to do it while your legs are more elevated. And you must use the pedals that work your calf muscles with each turn instead of just on the bottom of your feet.

Your abdominal muscles are under so much continuous tension that you likely double your fat loss just from that alone.  But that also means that over time you’ll tighten them up enough your waist will be and look an inch less even before your fat loss!

The net result is that even this low level exercise takes some effort at first -- AND while you are doing it and for 15 minutes or more after you stop you are slightly warm as if it was 5 or more degrees warmer in your office.

(Bryan, who worked up to using it for many hours a day, got a quit fan to keep this from causing him to sweat too much and recommended I get one eventually also.)

BUT, note what that means!  Once you build up to it a bit, you literally burn extra calories just like a furnace at the same time you work at your desk!

And, that happens every weekday without adding any new time to your schedule!

No wonder Bryan lost 18 pounds!

The bad news is that only people with larger offices and who have very high motivation will find it usable at all.  Then it costs $2,000 too.

For those people, I think it will become famous!

And, as Bryan and his people make improvements in how comfortable it is to sit on, how to design the desk part to be smaller or easier to use or both and more, more people will be able to use it OK.

I got mine a week ago today and have used it this week.

I still need to make my seat softer and develop more work arounds to make my files more accessible.  And, I need to get far more fit and used to using it.

But I hate my the extra fat on my belly so much, I WILL do it.

But what about people who need something they can use at their existing desk and chair without all these challenging adjustments?

What about people who can only afford two or three hundred dollars for at an your desk exerciser and people who need something far easier to use and get used to or who need to avoid generating quite that much heat?

I know how to make one! 

And, while I hope to help Bryan sell and upgrade his great fat loss product and sell it to people like me who want its benefits, I also want to work with him to build and make that other  product since 250 to 25000 times as many people will be able to use it and will buy one.