The Case for Not Overusing Our Cheeks.

“Sitting for More Than 13 Hours a Day May Sabotage the Benefits of Exercise”

I really didn’t need to see this headline!  Thanks, New York Times, for this ugly reminder.

Then there was this sub-title in the article:

People who sat for long periods and took fewer than 4,000 steps a day developed metabolic problems, even if they exercised.

I took a quick glance at my Fitbit.  It’s 6:30 a.m. and I’ve been on my arse in my office chair now for just short of two hours and amassed a whopping 417 steps (that’s a trip to the driveway for the morning paper, two to the coffee pot and one to the john because of the coffee).

This was not a great way to start my day!

Yeah, the mantra has been around for a while now:  “Sitting is the new smoking!”  Now, this!

Can’t we find something for all these research scientists to do other than to run around revealing the truth about how this transport system/body works?

I’m an ex-smoker.  It was a b***h to quit (June 6, 1979).  I’m thinking this sitting thing might be as tough but in a different way.  I’m not so much addicted to sitting.  It’s just that I’ve got this keyboard-monitor combination thing going that seems to work best from a right angle posture.  Yeah, I know all about the stand-up desk.  No, I have not bought in.  They seem clumsy and you’re still not moving.

The discouraging part of all this, for me personally, is that I work pretty hard at hitting at least 60,000 steps a week, with Sunday a sort of non-exercise/recovery day.  But most of every day I’m in my Office Depot faux-leather chair deteriorating my retinas before two large monitors pretending to make my wife wealthy (on that front, I’m a skilled imposter).

I usually hit my 60,000 steps by lumping it all into daily exercise sessions made up of a revolving combination of elliptical, upright bike, treadmill and some pretty serious weight-lifting. (I can’t run – no knee cap cartilage because of 17 years of pickup basketball).  I try to hit 10,000+ on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday and 7-8,000 on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday.  An active Sunday- not common – can take the pressure off the rest of the week.

I’m sure that was a lot of information that you didn’t need/want to know.

Now they’re saying that my yeoman exercise effort is farshtunken (Google it).

I’ve averaged 59,905 steps/week over the last 50 weeks.  My biggest week: 72,219.  My lowest week: 45,546.  That’s 2,995,265 steps.

It makes me tired just typing that in.

Starting this article incented me to waste some valuable time to determine how I’ve done against my step goal over the last year.  Yes, I confess that my quirkiness includes foldering my Fitbit weekly reports since 2014 and being weird enough to take the time to calculate this average  for your consumption (do you begin to understand how I’m falling short of making my wife wealthy?)

So, if this latest research report is valid, then I’m maybe neutral at best on the health front with my oneness with my chair-keyboard-monitor combo.

My Fitbit Charge 2 lives up to its product pitch – it vibrates every so often and a little figure dances across the screen and reminds me to get up and accumulate 250 steps.  Unfortunately, I treat it the same way I do the flood of offshore solicitation/scam calls that hit my office phone – as an aggravating interruption.

I look at the little dancing figure and tell it to take a hike itself rather than get in my grill.

Maybe if we FTM (follow-the-money) on this research project we’ll discover Fitbit financed it.  I’m pretty much that trusting of a lot of studies.

But something tells me this one is more legit than most of us chair-huggers and lazyboy-lovers really want to accept.

I’m getting off my butt!

So, here it is:  a publicly-stated commitment for which I will expect you to hold me accountable.   I’m taking little dancing Fitbit figure seriously.  I’m getting up and doing something when he/she/it vibrates me.  I’m going to figure out a half-dozen or so 250-step round trips I can take from my chair/keyboard/monitor anchor.

It’s going to have to be quite a change in routine.  My usual trips each day are to the bathroom (28 steps, round-trip) and to the refrigerator (52 round trip). One is optional, one isn’t.  Combined they fall seriously short of the 250-step Fitbit dancing-irritator goal.

On top of the sitting-is-killing-you warning, I’m reminded that I’m amongst the many on the planet who have a Vitamin D deficiency because I don’t experience much sunlight.  Apparently, the 200-watt incandescent in my desk lamp and the constant monitor glow aren’t good substitutes.

So, like so many other things that we can do that we don’t that can positively affect our health, this one is also simple (see below) – but a bit difficult because it calls for – egad – a habit change.  I don’t like all my habits but I dislike change more so they stay put.

This one is going to change – and I have your commitment to hold me accountable, right?

Here it is in its simplicity:

• Respect the vibrating, dancing Fitbit and find a way to hit 250 steps with each vibrate. It will tell me if I hit 250 with a congratulatory “you’re a winner” type message.  Hokie? Yeah. I’ll roll with it.
• Get my butt outside a couple of times a day as part of the 250.

There that’s pretty simple, right?  Not an overwhelming stretch to add an important health habit.

We all have plenty of unhealthy habits.  I’m betting that many of them are no more complicated to reverse than this sitting habit.  What are yours that you could reverse?  Can you commit to a simple plan to replace an unhealthy habit – and find an accountability partner to help you stay on track?  This isn’t, as they say, rocket science.

I’ll wrap with an example.  I have a friend in Toastmasters who recently “confessed” to me and a fellow Toastmaster and health advocate following my speech on “compressing morbidity” and “avoiding frailty” that he has a serious addiction to Diet Pepsi – to the tune of a 12-pack a day (yes, you read that right).  He committed to gradually work his way off of this habit, and, three weeks later, is down to two cans per week.  His drink of choice is now becoming unsweetened tea.

That by itself is huge.  But, with his new surge of energy and confidence, he has also begun to swing his diet to more of a plant-based diet.

He acknowledged his habit, committed publicly to changing it and uses both of his witnessing Toastmaster friends as his accountability partners.  His enthusiasm about this new lifestyle change is palpable. And, serendipitously, his wife, who is dealing with her own set of unhealthy habits and has been very resistant to changing any of them, is now getting in step with his lifestyle change.

Consider the simplicity of what he is doing but be inspired by the difficulty of his transformation. His motivation?  A new awareness of the downside of his habits by becoming more knowledgeable and seeing – and feeling – the upside of what his life can become with the habit change.

It’s a track any of us can follow.