Avoiding Weight Gain: Stand Up for Yourself

One of the simplest ways to help yourself avoid weight gain is to stand up. That's right: sitting down for long periods of time sends your metabolism into hibernation-mode. That leads to fat storage and, researchers say, it can even open the door to diabetes. Standing switches on the enzyme lipase. Lipase helps the body process cholesterol and fat. Lipase is so important that, even if a person exercises regularly, sitting for prolonged periods can still lead to weight gain.

Did you hug a chair today?

Chances are, you are reading this article while . . . sitting down. As Selene Yeager, in a piece on "Sitting Disease," asks: "How long have you been there? An hour? Two? So long your brain has shut off and your butt's gone numb? Welcome to the computer age, where many of us work, play, shop, bank, pay bills and rent videos without ever so much as standing up."

A whole new meaning to "couch potato"

Remember when "couch potato" only meant someone who spent time watching mindless TV? Remember when people actually had to "run errands"? If they wanted a plane ticket, they had to get up and go to a travel agency --- or at least get up, get the phone book out of the drawer and look up the travel agent's number. They had to go to the library to renew their books, to the mall to buy a sweater, to the Post Office to buy stamps and to the grocery store to buy groceries. Now people literally can conduct most of their life online, most of which they do in a seated position.

That's a lot of sitting. And calling it "Sitting Disease" is not far off the mark. Biomedical researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia found that sitting for long periods had a significant effect on how many calories a person burned and how much fat they stored --- even if they otherwise exercised regularly. In fact, this study found that even when people exercised strenuously for an hour a day, that exercise did not compensate for the detrimental effects of too much sitting.

How detrimental is too much sitting?

The research team found that "physical inactivity throughout the day stimulated disease-promoting processes." That is, long periods of sitting led the body to go down various biochemical "pathways" scientists know lead to a bad end (such as diabetes).

Sitting also had "negative effects on fat and cholesterol metabolism." We all know that burning sufficient calories is critical to avoiding weight gain. But, Yeager states, "some researchers estimate that, thanks to the conveniences of our computerized lives, we burn 1,000 fewer calories a day--about half a day's worth for most of us--than we did just 30 years ago."

Yes, that's up to an extra half a day's worth of calories that can end up stored as fat instead of burned as fuel. As Dr. Hamilton, one of the scientists on the study stated, what we're talking about getting recirculated here and eventually stored, rather than metabolized, is "not a small amount of fat."

The bottom line is this: to promote health and well-being, as well as to avoid weight gain, it's important to simply stand up and move around lightly on a regular basis.

Stand up to help avoid weight gain

While modern conveniences continue, in some cases, to make life easier, they can have a downside, too. The fact that modern technology encourages sitting, however, can be straightforward to remedy. Not everyone will want to interrupt a good rant or a brilliant writing project to stand up now and then. But no doubt there are many more situations where standing would not be a distraction at all. Researchers suggest this simple approach: to help avoid weight gain, avoid the chair as much as possible.

Sources:

Selene Yeager, "Cycling Injury Prevention: Sitting Disease," Bicycling.

"Sitting May Increase Risk of Disease," Science Daily.

"Stand Up For Your Health; Physiologists And Microbiologists Find Link Between Sitting And Poor Health," Science Daily.Sitting for long periods of time shuts down lipase, the enzyme that metabolizes fatWhen fat in the bloodstream is not processed by lipase, it gets stored in the bodyStanding up on a regular basis keeps the body's fat metabolism active and on track