Working Out? Don't Sit Down on the Job

Certain things in life are so obvious that you don't feel the need or understand the reason why someone needs to be told those things. Like for example at a restaurant, when the waiter tells you the plate he's serving you is hot your first instinct isn't to cringe in fear rather it's to grab onto that plate with both hands despite the fact that it's a cast iron pan that's searing hot and your waiter is holding it with ice cold oven mitts. It should be obvious to us not to do it but we do it anyways. In the case of working out that principle holds true as well. Don't know what I mean? Well how about a recently published article in which scientists at the University of Missouri have stated that they have found evidence that when standing up (just standing up mind you) your body continues to burn fat as opposed to the mechanism completely shutting down while you're seated. Should be obvious that there is a correlation between the two right? Well not exactly.

Most people know by now that there is no miracle cure for losing weight much to the chagrin of most of us out there. There's no single pill that we can take that will burn off fat while we sleep, the body just doesn't work that way. So what do we do? We have to work out of course. Now I have been a regular gym-goer for a number of years now and I can attest to the difference working out means. For years working out for me meant the walk from school to home or on campus when in college. It wasn't really working out unless I was in a rush to get to my destination in which case I might break a slight sweat or I might not. It ultimately meant that I wasn't really getting a good workout. I used to feel frustrated at the fact that despite my efforts to walk or jog around on occasion proved fruitless. To think that I didn't realize that my time sitting down was the culprit.

Around the time of my sophomore year in high school I began working in offices over the summer as a data analyst or general clerk. I did odd jobs here and there but I never really did jobs where I would be on my feet or be required to do heavy work. I sat at my desk for the whole day and again, since I didn't have a license, I used to walk home in the evenings. It would generally end up being a three mile walk at the most but still, it wasn't enough to counter the eight hours that I spent in my seat at my desk. Since that time, I have still not had a job where I spend time on my feet or move around a lot. I continue to work at my desk since that's the most convenient place to do work or at least to do the type of work I am supposed to be doing. But I feel that the times are a'changin' and soon enough the findings at the University of Missouri may lead to changes in the office environment.

Most companies are aware that they pay out a lot more in health insurance if they have employees who end up with health issues resulting from a sedentary and relatively unhealthy eating lifestyle. I mean if you expect your employees to work 15 hours a day and then pay for them to get pizza or burgers or Chipotle as an office meal, the employers are doing nothing more than exacerbating the problem and contributing to the unhealthy lifestyle of their employees. Some have taken steps to help ease this problem. They offer incentives such as bonuses for employees who attend a company sponsored gym. They pay for memberships at local gyms or health clubs, they promote walking and physical activity clubs and some are even starting to implement workstations with built in treadmills and such. This latest discovery may make promoting healthy living even cheaper for companies. Why pay for a treadmill desk when you can just have your employees stand for eight hours?

Now that's not to say that I assume that many offices will start encouraging their employees to stand around all day but it's a plausible idea isn't it? I mean I try to take a break from my desk every once in a while if to do nothing more than give my eyes a break from staring at the screen for so long and to stretch my legs. I also do what scientists had also previously linked to a 'healthy' office denizen lifestyle and that's shaking my feet. I have had a habit since childhood that when I'm sitting down, after a little while, at least one of my feet will start to shake, often subconsciously. Doctors had said that even this little bit contributes to burning calories. If I do it almost constantly I can probably burn off most of the coffee I drink during the day.

This standing concept seems easy and straightforward but I don't know how effective it would be. What the scientists found was that when standing, the fat cells were in the bloodstream and then passed through the muscles where they were burned off. Once the test subject sat down the fat basically sat and was eventually absorbed back into the body. That's definitely not a good thing. So what to do then? Well stay standing for as long as you can. The longer you stand the better it appears to be. Of course this will lead to all sorts of unintended results as well if this trend catches on. What do I mean? Well now you'll have all the sports shoe companies like Nike and Reebok looking to cash in on the performance/standing formal footwear section. Air Jordan dress shoes with built in air cushion chambers will be all the rage. You'll hear of incidents of office workers threatening on another with whiteout to get a pair from another office mate. Soon anarchy will reign in offices and employees will complain that the gatherings around the water cooler or coffee pots aren't standing affairs anymore but sitting affairs. It could spell the beginning of the end for office life as we know it. Of course we'll all be healthier for it though.