Last year, registered dietitian Jill Weisenberger wrote a book and started worrying about sitting too much. “I jog every morning, but what about the other 23 hours a day? I’ve read that sitting makes the blood vessels less elastic, and I didn’t want to be a jogger and a dietitian with heart disease,” says Weisenberger, 50, of Yorktown, Va. At home she began walking a circuit while cooking dinner. Then she bought a desk equipped to fit over a treadmill and now logs 30 to 35 miles a week walking at 1.4 miles per hour. “I can type, read email, surf the Net — anything except have pretty handwriting,” she says.
The Cancer Society’s Patel stands during conference calls, uses a printer in another office, and eschews email and the telephone to walk over to a colleague’s office. She also sits on an exercise ball. “It’s called ‘active sitting.’ If you slouch you fall off,” she says. She takes a brisk 20-minute walk at lunch, adding longer walks before or after work. By reducing sitting time and ramping up physical activity, Patel also lost 40 pounds in six months.
To Stand More, Sit Less
Step away from the computer and take a nice walk on your lunch break. — Photo by cultura/Corbis- Deliver messages to colleagues in person instead of texting or emailing.
- Look at minor chores as an opportunity to prevent disease.
- Place the stapler and wastebasket on the other side of the office.
- Reduce TV viewing. Stand up when fast-forwarding or changing channels.
- Put your computer on a plastic milk crate on the desk and work standing up.
- Set your computer to remind you to stand up and stretch every 30 minutes.
- Stand up when the phone rings.
- Think of ways to add physical activity to your workday and leisure time.
- Use the bathroom down a flight of stairs.
These articles are compliments of Elizabeth Pope in the AARP Bulletin/Get Fit in 2012. Elizabeth Pope is a writer based in Portland, Maine.
