Get off your duff.

May 20th, 2008 at 01:55pm Mike DeDoncker

Get off your duff. It’s killing you.

That command was part of an illustration for an article by Jim Gerard in the March/April 2008 issue of the American Council on Exercise’s Fitness Matters magazine.

I found the article interesting because it talked about something I don’t think I’d have ever guessed about how the body retains fat when we are sitting down.

Gerard wrote about a study done by scientists at the University of Missouri, and published in November 2007, in which they found, to quote Gerard, that “When we sit, the enzymes that are responsible for burning fat just shut down. And not even a regular dose of exercise can combat the resultant weight gain.”

Some other findings Gerard wrote about are:

1. When a small amount of fat was injected into sitting animals it did not remain in the blood vessels that pass through the muscles, where it could be burned. Instead, it was captured by adipose tissue where globules of fat are stored.

2. After the animals had been sitting for several hours, lipase, an enzyme critical to the body’s ability to break down fat, was down to 10 percent of its normal levels.

Gerard also wrote that, according to Dr. Marc Hamilton, the research team’s leader, if a person doesn’t do enough non-exercise activities during their normal movements of the day “You can’t assume that exercise at the end of the day will wipe out the damage you caused the rest of the time you were sitting.”

Gerard’s article goes on to talk about a $4,000 piece of equipment called a Walkstation but, barring your company springing for something like this, it sounds more than ever like a really good idea to at least get up and move around at work to whatever limit your job will allow.

Parking as far from the building as feasible, walking around between assignments, swinging your arms, stretching, or taking a walk on your lunch break, are all ways you could keep the activity level up. I’ll brush up on exercises that can be done at the desk and write about that soon.

Oh, and until then, don’t forget to get in your actual exercise time. 

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