Move It or Lose It

I met my friend and guitar teacher, Jim Collard, for dinner at Maudie’s – a favorite Tex-Mex food haven of mine. We found our way to a table and as we were about to sit down, I saw to my left, a family of four: a child, a man and woman I assumed to be the child’s parents and an older man likely the grandfather.

The child was maybe 6 or 7 years old.

He was wearing head phones and staring at a video playing on a small electronic device – maybe 8-9 inches wide.

The adults were talking to each other as if the kid was not even there.

I stared.

Almost too long as the mother looked up at me like I had a long handled knife in my hand.

“That’s just incredible to me,” I said to Jim.

“Yeah, I know. Sorta’ sad really,” he replied.

And yet this is far more often the norm than not.

But it comes at a very high price years later.

Researchers have found that people who spent two or more hours a day in front of a computer or television had twice the risk of heart attack or other cardiac event and those who spent four hours a day, enjoyed a 50% greater risk of dying of any cause.

Seriously.

Sitting can kill you.

And exercising your butt off three days a week on a treadmill or elliptical apparently doesn’t help much.

So what to do?

Break up your sitting with activity. Some suggestions:

• Use a timer. Set the timer for 45 minutes and place it across the room. When it goes off, get up, walk over, reset it, do some light stretching or movement or walk for 2 minutes then hit the timer and go back to work.
• Use a Gymboss interval timer. A more sophisticated version of the first option but this tool allows you to set the work/rest interval and the number of total intervals.
• Use a computer based timer. I have Chimoo.
• Use software that makes you makes take a break. Very cool idea.
• Get a walking work station. I haven’t tried this but it makes a lot of sense if you can find room for it.

Bottom line, move it or, literally, lose it.