Even if you think you are energetic, sitting all day at work is common for most of us. And it's killing us—literally—by way of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. We know that exercise is the key, but what else can we realistically do every day to turn our sedentary lifestyle around?
The answer lies in speeding up your daily non-exercise activity thermogenesis—or NEAT. That's the energy (i.e., calories) you burn doing everything but exercise, and if you fidget than you're already way ahead of the game. In a groundbreaking study on NEAT, the Mayo Clinic tracked every single step and fidget of 20 people who weren't regular exercisers (half of them were obese; half were not). After 10 days, they found that the lean participants moved an average of 150 minutes more per day than the overweight people did—enough to burn 350 calories, or about one cheeseburger.
Fidgeting, standing, and puttering may even keep you off medications and out of the doctor's office. Think of your body as a computer: As long as you're moving the mouse and tapping the keys, all systems are go. But let it idle for a few minutes, and the machine goes into power-conservation mode. Your body is meant to be active, so when you sit and do nothing for too long, it shuts down and burns less energy. Getting consistent activity throughout the day keeps your metabolism humming along in high gear.
When you get out of your chair and start moving around, you turn on fat burners. Simply standing up fries three times as many calories as sitting on your butt, according to the study.
Research has shown that swapping sedentary habits, such as watching television, for pretty much anything that doesn't involve sitting down can make a world of difference. The experts explain how to take every opportunity to flex your muscles, boost your heart rate, and eat foods that yield maximum fullness for minimal calories.
Here are 10 simple lifestyle changes that you can do everyday to turn your health around...
1. Take vitamin D
Women who were deficient in it lost weight more slowly in a study in the British Journal of Nutrition.
2. Drink coffee
Studies have found that caffeine increases the rate at which you burn calories.
3. Do things by hand
Wash your dishes, vacuum, or cook dinner.
4. Eat lightly and often
For most people, the body uses up more energy digesting smaller meals every few hours than by eating the same number of calories in two or three sittings.
5. Move briskly
Make a point wherever you are headed – at work, home, or out on errands to consciously move faster.
6. Laugh
It burns up to 50 calories if you laugh for 10 to 15 minutes per day.
7. Eat breakfast
You send your body a signal that you're not starving, so it starts burning fat — even when you're just doing normal activities.
8. Time yourself
Spend the last five minutes of each hour (set your computer timer) up and moving around.
9. Watch less television
Adults who halved their television viewing time (by using an electronic lock-out system) not only burned an extra 119 calories per day, but did so without altering what they ate.
10) Fidget
You can burn up to 350 more calories a day than someone who remains stationary, according to a study at the Mayo Clinic. The impulse to fidget may be hardwired, but non-fidgeters can imitate it: Tap your feet, pace, or move restlessly in your seat.
The bottom line is any kind of motion or activity can help offset the effects of being too sedentary. All of these little changes will add up in a big way. In the course of a day, trivial exercise such as walking rather than driving, and washing dishes by hand added up to more than 108 calories. Over a year, that adds up to nearly 40,000 calories.
Next: Learn how there is a simple way to achieve lasting overall fitness. In Hardwired for Fitness, Robert Portman and John Ivy explain that because the body has an inherent tendency toward fitness, there is no good reason for anyone to be overweight or out of shape. As readers of this book will discover, the human body’s fitness circuitry is a remarkable, integrated piece of engineering. When the circuits are functioning in harmony, they can activate the body’s metabolic machinery far more effectively and safely than any commercial product. Find out more at www.basichealthpub.com
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