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How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

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Re: How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

#21
post #8

I wonder if intensity matters. What would the response be if instead of treadmill one lifted weights with high intensity.

It depends on the fitness level of the subjects. The more fit they are, the less low intensity exercise (treadmill) is effective. More info here: https://roguehealthandfitness.com/importance-exercise-intens...

Also depends on how you use it.

If slow, long jogs aren't cutting it—hit the sprints. 20 seconds on (full out), 30 seconds off (medium-light pace), or some similar interval.

Re: How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

#22
Exercise should only be for cardiovascular health. If you have an unfavorable energy imbalance, i.e. you're gaining weight, then you need to eat less by extending your time between meals. It's as 'simple' as that. Not easy, but simple. The 'easiest' solution is to go through periods of intermittent fasting. Either skip breakfast+lunch most days, or take a few days off eating entirely. People need to stop dieting, and they need to start 'not eating'. Our society consumes too much food.

Re: How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

#23

The study in question limited participants to 4,000 steps a day for four days. That's an absurdly low level of exercise to undertake.

Is it that absurd?

During the coldest months of winter I would wake up and eat breakfast (sitting), jump in the car (sitting), commute to the office (sitting).

Once at the office I sit for 8h.

Then car again (sitting). Back home I prepare food (standing!) and then eat it (sitting). I then spent the rest of the day either sitting on the couch or at the computer.

Weekends could get even worst if it was a snowstorm day. Wake up, eat, sit in front of Netflix and then back to sleep.

Now that spring is in the air my steps are raising back up.

Re: How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

#24

The study in question limited participants to 4,000 steps a day for four days. That's an absurdly low level of exercise to undertake.

Is it that absurd? During the coldest months of winter I would wake up and eat breakfast (sitting), jump in the car (sitting), commute to the office (sitting). Once at the office I sit for 8h. Then car again (sitting). Back home I prepare food (standing!) and then eat it (sitting). I then spent the rest of the day either sitting on the couch or at the computer. Weekends could get even worst if it was a snowstorm day.…

You sit for 8 hours...straight? No. You also seem somewhat proud for not being active...why make your family go through the drawbacks earlier than necessary? Not to mention the future medical costs (not just money but time)

Re: How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

#25
post #3

This report triggered several of my alarm bells, so I investigated further. I had a look at the quoted study. "RESULTS: No differences between trials ( P > 0.05) were found in the overall plasma triglyceride, glucose, or insulin responses during the HFGTT. " It takes some balls to dismiss a study based on one sentence in the abstract, but this is an admission of a common and fatal mistake, so I'm going to do exactly…

Makes you wonder what they're selling. Get a few sites to pick up a bogus scientific study article supporting a new product they're releasing is a thing.

Right? This feels like a foundational article used to build bullshit credentials somewhere else by planting bogus citations that no one will check because they are >1 level deep. Hell, people don't even check 1-level deep citations.

Re: How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it that absurd? During the coldest months of winter I would wake up and eat breakfast (sitting), jump in the car (sitting), commute to the office (sitting). Once at the office I sit for 8h. Then car again (sitting). Back home I prepare food (standing!) and then eat it (sitting). I then spent the rest of the day either sitting on the couch or at the computer. Weekends could get even worst if it was a snowstorm day.…

You sit for 8 hours...straight? No. You also seem somewhat proud for not being active...why make your family go through the drawbacks earlier than necessary? Not to mention the future medical costs (not just money but time)

It's not about being proud, it's about showing how having such a behavior is not absurd. I don't walk around talking about my inactivity.

In my case, that's only two months a year. Someone else might be that inactive for the entire year.

Think older people, people with disabilities, physical or mental health issues, etc.

Sure, I don't sit for 8 hours a day while at the office but it's pretty close to it. I have a 30 minute lunch where I walk to the cafeteria and stand while waiting for the microwave. I also have a 15 minute break in the afternoon where I walk to the most comfortable spot of the building and back again.

When it's not -22ºF outdoor I squeeze some outdoor walking time in during those breaks.

I hate stationary cardio on machines and can't stand harsh cold weather. My exercise is done hiking up trails during spring, summer and fall.

Re: How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

#27

The study in question limited participants to 4,000 steps a day for four days. That's an absurdly low level of exercise to undertake.

I'm working remote since 4 years, and I have had periods spanning weeks where I have moved less than 2000 steps during 90% of the days. When I started working remote, I went from walking 8k steps per day to ~1k consistently for a 6 months or so. My schedule when I started was 1) Go up from bed 2) Go to computer 3) Sit for ~8h straight, only pause for toilet and making lunch 4) After 8h make dinner, eat, feel like a vegetable in both mind and body.

I've since then re-arranged my day to at least walk 5k-8k steps per day. I've found that the step count doesn't matter much, I need at least 30min high intensity workout every day to not go numb in my mind and body. Luckily, I have two daughters, so I'm forced to do more excersices than I did when I worked from outside of my home.

Re: How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

#29

Exercise should only be for cardiovascular health. If you have an unfavorable energy imbalance, i.e. you're gaining weight, then you need to eat less by extending your time between meals. It's as 'simple' as that. Not easy, but simple. The 'easiest' solution is to go through periods of intermittent fasting. Either skip breakfast+lunch most days, or take a few days off eating entirely. People need to stop dieting, and…

Depending on your present calorie consumption you can start reducing calories by really concentrating on the fats you're including in your everyday diet. I'm not saying fats are bad, but that there is double the calories per unit of fat versus carbs and protein. Start concentrating on replacing some of those fats with purer protein and high fiber foods. This way you've already reduced calories, but not how much you're eating. I started with getting out of the habit of always having whole milk on hand at home, for example. You'd be surprised by how much you can curb your appetite by just leaning a bit more on high fiber foods and protein.

I combined this with being more mindful of how much I exercised that day. If I did exercise that day I don't use it as an excuse to binge eat anything.

I also try to push breakfast out until around 10am (I wake up around 7am, and usually stop eating by 8pm the previous day). Not sure if that counts as fasting, but it works for me. I tried 16 hours of fasting (basically no eating until lunch) and I just ended up binge-eating the calories I saved by not eating. Your mileage may vary.

After getting to work I have about a quart of water, then a coffee. If I feel on the edge of "I need a snack" sometimes it can be enough to just have another pint of water in response to that feeling.

Last, I really tried to get an understanding for how many calories are in particular foods and how many calories I really need per day. Use a calorie calculator to get a feeling for how much you burn while doing certain exercises. Learn how many calories are in common items that you eat all the time. Find optimizations if they are particularly high in calories. Then, after you've learned a bit, stop stressing about the numbers, take your newfound knowledge and see how you do.

Re: How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

#30
post #5
post #3

This report triggered several of my alarm bells, so I investigated further. I had a look at the quoted study. "RESULTS: No differences between trials ( P > 0.05) were found in the overall plasma triglyceride, glucose, or insulin responses during the HFGTT. " It takes some balls to dismiss a study based on one sentence in the abstract, but this is an admission of a common and fatal mistake, so I'm going to do exactly…

I also wanted to dig into this. The null hypothesis and burden-of-proofs change between p tests and equivalence testing, right? P tests: null hypothesis is that there is nothing different, burden of proof to suggest there is a difference. Equivalence testing: null hypothesis is that there is something different, burden of proof to suggest there is no difference. But maybe this is just a misapplied p-test? So while th…

Yes, they used a test designed to find a difference between two groups, and it failed to report a difference.

Your analysis of that is correct, although the terminology "p-test" to describe "a statistical test designed to find a difference" is not. I don't know the general term for this class of tests.

The definition of p-values is a bit wonky (there's actually a set of null hypotheses rather than a single one, and it involves a supremum over that set), but the line "if we're wrong, then the chance of seeing this data is at most p" is pretty accurate. All kinds of frequentist statistical tests use them, including equivalence tests.

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