Why Your Working May Not Be Cutting It

From Mashable Infographic

We first started to realize just how bad sitting was when we read A.J. Jacob's Drop Dead Healthy (great book).  Since that time, there have been numerous studies concluding that sitting for long periods of time is wreaking havoc with our weight and health. We had our intern Katelynn sort out the sitting issue and suggest ways for us to maintain our professional lives without gaining weight and harming our health. And Katelynn’s video is a must watch (awesome).

You’re probably sitting down right now while reading this and I’m sitting right now while writing this. The problem is that our bodies are physically designed to stand up regularly and to move around. Excessive sitting is defined as sitting for more than six hours a day and very easy to  “accomplish” with an office job and a modest TV habit. Think about it, a couple of hours in the morning, two more at lunch, a couple of shows at night, you're there. According to The New York Times, “the average adult spends 50 to 70 percent of their time sitting.” That’s half of your life as we say T2C (tush to chair).  A recent U.S. News and World Report article showed that even 3 hours per day could have deleterious effects, uh oh.

A popular misconception is that if you get enough daily exercise, you’re exempt from the consequences of sitting. However, the truth is far from that. In fact, the person who exercises regularly but sits or watches TV for a combination of six hours has similar risk to someone who sits the same amount and doesn’t exercise. Regardless of your activity level, excessive sitters live two years less. Studies have found that prolonged sitting increases the rate of hear disease and diabetes while and slowing your metabolism.  People who sit too long reduce good cholesterol levels by 22 percent. And data presented at the American Institute for Cancer Research concluded sitting time is emerging as a cancer risk factor independent of weight or exercise habits. Excessive sitting can also lead to poor posture, knee pain, herniated discs and other back and neck.

So what is it that makes sitting so bad? Physiologically certain things happen when we sit. Lipase is what helps muscles absorb fat. While sitting, we don’t produce lipase so fat can be stored or end up in our arteries. Other research pointed out what happens within muscle when we sit, there's “the absence of skeletal muscle contractions, particularly in the very large muscles of the lower limbs,” When muscles don’t contract they don’t require fuel so blood sugar can accumulate in the bloodstream. This explains the sitting/diabetes connection.

Short of quitting a desk job or investing in a treadmill desk (we can dream) try standing versus sitting. As REM said (I thought REM was a typo when Lauren suggested I include this), “Stand in the Place Where You Are"extra points if you do the dorky dance. Stand while on the phone or watching your children play. When seated make sure you get up every 30 minutes. Aside from letting lipase do it’s fat zapping job, according to Dr. Hamilton, associate professor of biomedical sciences University of Missouri, standing will help you burn an extra 60 calories an hour. And because we have your back (and don’t want that back decorated in back fat), here are some exercise ideas you can implement while commuting or at your desk:

This youtube video Katelynn created could could change your life. 

As seen in the video:

Calf Raises

While doing these calf raises ‘the calves perform a motion called plantar flexior, and you can burn about 20 calories for 15 of these. Also stand on the bus or subway.

Water Bottle Workout

A 16 oz Poland Spring water bottle weighs approximately 1.08 pounds. The heavier the water bottle, the more it will help work your arm muscles. And for your feet at your desk these Yamuna reflexology balls are fantastic.

Swap Out Your Chair

Exchange your old wooden office chair for one that will give you a workout while sitting. Gaiam sells the perfect “Balance Ball Chairs” for your office. 

Dr. Alpa Patel, senior epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society, had this ot say about sitting “if you reduce sitting by five minutes an hour, at the end of a long day, you’ve shaved an hour of your total sitting time.” 

Are you sedentary or active during the day? How much would you guesstimate you sit? Did you realize sitting was so dangerous?

Spread the word, tweet us evidence that you're taking this information to heart. REM dance? Water bottle workout? Commute Calk Raises? Let's see it. 

Are You Skinny Fat? Find Out Why.

 When it comes to meals there’s breakfast and lunch but then there’s brunch. A similar combination exists when it comes to weight, there’s skinny and fat and then skinny fat. Skinny fat is a person who’s thin for the most part but has a high body fat percentage. Skinny fat can also apply to that friend who you think can eat “whatever she wants” and stay skinny. Skinny fat people may weigh the right amount for their height, they may look fine in clothes but under it all there’s extra, some mush, less muscle mass.

What type of exercise makes you skinny fat?
For some reason cardio, in particular spinning, takes a lot of heat for its connection to skinny fatness. A trainer named Charles Poliquin was asked about spinning in Oxygen magazine and let’s just say he was not a fan.

“In spinning exercise, the body adapts by storing both intra-muscular and subcutaneous fat in the thigh and hip areas to provide a more readily available source of fuel for the aerobic recovery periods. The body figures out, if I store fat there it reduces the time to get to the muscles to provide the energy source. Result: Kobe beef thighs and butt, all plump and marbled with fat inside.”

 I enjoy spinning (I’m a Flywheel fan) but I think the key word in the harsh (Kobe beef thighs?) quote above is “adapts”. Our bodies adapt to anything. I think those most in danger of being skinny fat, or not changing their bodies, are those who only spin. We need more than spinning and ultimately more than cardio too. Whether it’s superslow training, barre, Crossfit you need some strength work and variety. Getting better at something may be when your body gets worse. And let’s face it,  some skinny fat people don’t exercise at all.

When you eat may make you skinny fat

Another ingredient for skinny fatness is erratic eating.  Some erratic eaters skip breakfast, others “save up” for dinner. Or the biggest clue when I’m talking to a client when it comes to skinny fat is “I’m not hungry.” You’re not hungry when your body assumes food isn’t coming in regularly, so it hangs onto that fat. Hungry people are the ones burning through all their food.

Sitting
This information was relatively new to me. I mentioned it when reviewing Drop Dead Healthy. Sitting isn’t bad because you’re not moving. It’s worse than that. Lipase helps muscles absorb fat. When we sit, we don’t produce lipase so fat can “go off and do naughty things”. 

Does Veganism Make You Skinny Fat?

Vegan Diets get picked on for making people skinny fat. I’m not a vegan but it’s not all vegan diets it’s vegan diets or any diet missing one of the following

• Protein- I know I’m going to hear it (read some of the comments in “are meat substitutes worse than meat”) but when I drop my animal protein down, I feel a little skinny fat. Organic chicken, wild fish, grass-fed beef, if you aren’t morally against them, may help. And yes, some vegans get plenty of protein.
• Good fats- certain types of fat, consumed strategically can decrease body fat. Omega 3’s in fish, omega 3 eggs and chia seed. We’ve also discussed the power of sunflower seeds. And finally, a little coconut oil is a good saturated fat.
• Vegetables- every 10-gram increase in fiber decreases body fat by over 3 percent in a couple of years. Not everyone who avoids animal products is automatically consuming enough fiber and certainly the same can be said of most omnivores. Salad is not enough. Try for produce at every meal and hone in on crucifers: broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy and kale. I also think cabbage needs more love.

We can joke at this skinny fat term but doctors are seeing lots of young people who aren’t overweight but exhibit signs of pre diabetes. You can be skinny fat on the inside too. Mark Hyman writes “they are normal weight but metabolically obese with all the same risks of disease and death as the obese. One in seven normal weight kids has pre-diabetes or Type 2 diabetes.”

There are also some skinny fat variables are out of our control. Getting older with the natural decline in muscle mass can lead to complaints of skinny fat. And some may feel skinny fat is fine. The New York Times documented the hipster belly among men that don’t want to be muscleheads. Just one more way I’m not hip.

Are you aware of the term skinny fat? What do you think it's about? If you spin, are vegan or sit a lot I'd love to hear from you.

Healthier Than Thou

Do you have a list of books you want to read? I have  a lengthy one in the memo section of my Blackberry. Some books I save for a vacation or weekend away, others I never get around to. And there’s a third category that don’t make the list because I purchase them immediately. That’s what happened with A.J. Jacob’s Drop Dead Healthy.

In this book Jacobs, a writer for Esquire goes “on a quest to become as healthy as humanly possible.” After all, as he says, fifty percent of health is determined by behavior. In two years, this New Yorker, husband and father tries everything from barefoot running to raw foodism. However, this is not just an account of all  the things tried, this is entertaining and very informative.

Sit Less

The reason sitting is bad goes beyond the fact that when we’re sitting we’re not doing more active things. Lipase helps muscles absorb fat. When  we sit, we don’t produce lipase so fat can “go off and do naughty things”. Sitting is a problem even for those who go to the gym . Sitters have 64% increased chance of fatal heart disease.  Even standing is better but Jacobs takes it one step further and gets one of my longtime dream items, a treadmill desk. Actually, he gets a treadmill and fashions it into a desk.. He logged many miles writing this book.

Ice, Ice Baby

While some tips are straightforward, as Jacobs says “diet defies reductionism”. In commentary on superfoods, readers are encouraged not to forget about Clark Kent foods apples and oranges are still super. I love advice that doesn’t  take that much to accomplish. How’s this one…ice. Your body expends energy to heat an ice-cold beverage. It’s about 1 calorie for every icy ounce. If you drink 8 glasses a day that’s 70 extra calories burned.   I cranked up our ice machine after reading this. Next, I’m switching to iced tea.

Down with John Harvey Kellogg and the Potato

While most of us know the “whites” such as white bread, white potatoes, white rice aren’t healthy, if you’re like me you put the baked potato in its own category. It’s a whole food, has some fiber, notable potassium, I can clearly make a case for them. One of Jacob’s salient dietary lessons  listed in the appendix includes avoiding potatoes. We are told “the venerable baked potato increases blood sugar nearly as fast as table sugar”

And if there were parts of the book that made me rethink certain things, there was lots of confirmation for health behaviors I support.  Jacobs jovially points to John Harvey Kellogg for causing obesity epidemic. The truth is,  we would all be  better off we’d be without cold cereal. I’ve long been a fan of protein breakfasts and the cereal aisle, with the exception of oatmeal, is probably one to skip.

We Must Floss

As I was reading this book, I had a client come into the office suffering from periodontal disease. She’s a health nut, watches everything she eats but says “with all the things I did I didn’t floss.” Sure enough, Jacobs tackles dental health even checking out a “dental spa”. Flossing can add 6.4 years to your life. And if you need some motivation how about “you need to clean your tooth cracks before thousands types of bacteria migrate into your bloodstream”. For the overachievers reading this, you should floss before brushing. This way you dislodge the bacteria and then brush it away.

BPA Poetry

There’s lots of food information about toxins and germs. After reading, I removed showerheads and cleaned them with wire brush. I also washed my hands the way you’re supposed to wash them versus the quickie version. I  have yet to wash underwear separately from other laundry but I’ll let you surmise why that’s suggested. As for BPA’s in plastic, try this poem “four, five, one, and two/All the rest are bad for you.”

As Jacobs adopts more and more healthy behaviors, he observes himself judging others.  He becomes self-righteous glaring at Europeans smoking Gigantes and correcting people’s eating.  In the course of experimenting Jacobs also lost weight, improved his blood lipids and decreased his body fat. I really enjoyed this book but I would caution reading it if you’re vulnerable to this sort of advice as I am. I am now thinking about my Blackberry and brain cancer, noise pollution and whether I’m harming myself running on the West Side Highway breathing in car fumes (you are more vulnerable to fumes while exercising).  Perhaps I need to reread the chapter on stress.

Do you floss? Drink icy beverages? What health behavior could you focus more on? And what books are high on your reading list?