A funny thing happened on the way to resuming this blog! I got caught up in a bunch of other concerns. From now on, this is going to be an occasional blog, although some weeks it may be more prolific than others.
First of all, to catch up on the groceries cost, which I’d promised earlier: the January grocery bills totaled $382.32. That’s less than $100/week for our two-person family, and it included non-food items such as laundry soap, rock salt, and sundries such as shampoo. Keeping track gave me new respect for the whole shopping process, as well as letting me know that eating alkaline (at least 80 percent for the month) is no more expensive than a budget that would typically include meats, soft drinks, processed foods and other items that I consider to be unhealthy.
This has been a useful exercise for me because it made me realize that our own budgetary strains, such as they are, may relate more to eating out than to what I’m serving at home. Next month, I’ll keep track also of the latter.
Second, a whole new perspective on exercise is starting to unfold for me, as the result of an article by Maria Chang, a medical writer for The Associated Press. Writing from London, she did a very good job of summarizing how current research is suggesting that health authorities “rethink how they define physical activity, to highlight the dangers of sitting.”
I also loved her lead paragraph: “. . . Sitting is deadly.” All of us who’ve sat in front of computers or even typewriters for long periods of time have sensed that, surely.
In an editorial published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Elin Ekblom-Bak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, wrote that after four hours of sitting, genes regulating the amount of glucose and fat in the body start to shut down.
Is it possible that we need to limit how much time we spend sitting? Some of the most telling research that suggests we should, comes from a prospective study that tracked more than 17,000 Canadians for more than a decade, which found that people who sat more had a higher death risk, “independently of whether or not they exercised".
Americans, according to a 2003-04 study, spend more than half our time sitting, whether working at our desks or driving our cars, Chang noted.
Although more research is needed to understand how much sitting is harmful, and how we can offset its effects, it may be helpful to analyze your own current processes and see where you might want to make changes from sitting. For instance, I realized a couple of weeks ago that my former habit of playing computer games at night was inhibiting my ability to get to sleep. My mind was still preoccupied with the games, including a delightful Scrabble take-off called Lexulous, so that I couldn’t shut down and sleep. Maybe standing at the computer would help?
Am still running five miles a day, and recently added some circuit training to balance my (deficient) upper-body strength with well-developed lower-body muscles. The circuit training includes rowing, which, again, is sitting! Obviously there are alternatives and it will take time for me to incorporate them.
Another set of exercises, adapted from Paul and Gail Dennison’s fine book, Brain Gym, is good for starting the day with gentle activity. The best two in the small regime that I enjoy are the Cross-Crawl, in which you lift one leg and touch your knee with the opposite hand, slowly and rhythmically, 10-20 times; and Lazy 8s, in which you extend your arms in front, clasp hands with fingers intertwined just below eye level, thumbnails facing toward you. Holding your head still, trace a horizontal 8, or infinity sign with your hands, and follow with your eyes.
Perhaps doing such relaxing activity at “standing breaks” from work, would be one way to break into the sitting habit without seriously disrupting concentration. Another possibility, mentioned above, is standing at your computer, perhaps walking down the hall to talk to a colleague instead of calling him. If health authorities take the sitting problem seriously, computer desks could be redesigned to help users to stand at least part of the time while working.
I’ve watched colleagues get tubbier over the years, and it usually does correlate with sitting a lot. Even if it’s for a noble purpose, you might serve any goal better by being less sedentary. Me, too! I'm going to start by posting this while standing up!
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