A sedentary lifestyle is one with little or no physical activity.
For many of us, even people who exercise a lot, there are activities we do often that are sedentary in nature, e.g driving, watching TV, playing games and browsing. Infact, our society is super super sitting-centric, our sitting rooms have chairs, our lobbies have chairs, even our gardens have sitting areas.
However, the risks of living a sedentary lifestyle are more pronounced in office workers, who by the nature of their jobs are more likely to stay without physical activity for hours at a stretch. Of course, in most cases, they are exerting intense mental energy on the tasks at hand. If your daily work involves sitting for 5 hours or more, then you are a sedentary worker.
The medical consequences of sedentary lifestyle includes more than weight gain, it involves increased mortality rate in extreme cases and all sorts of health challenges over time.
Not to worry though, there are preventive measures that can be taken to mitigate the effects of a sedentary lifestyle without quitting your job. Lol.
Step one is to ensure that you incorporate activity into your life, intentionally, either outside of your working hours, or within your working hours, a workout session at lunchtime, trekking to go have your lunch, rather than having it in the office canteen, taking the stairs is an all time favourite, amongst other things.
Step two is to plan your splurge, and stay true to your plan… If you love the ice cream and waffles in the mall next door so much, not a problem, give yourself a goal to eat right for a week, then reward yourself with a guilt free portion of your favourite treat, and get back on the plan pronto.
Step three, just say no, in office settings, there will always be a birthday to celebrate, or TGIF, or a promotion etc… just say no to junk. NO will do, find healthy meal options and stick to them, take your food to work from home if you have to, but don’t get carried away with the allure of “just this once”
Step four, eat lesser portions and lesser calories, to lose weight, you are to create a calorie deficit, if your activity level is sedentary, it means, you are not burning the calories through physical exertion, you are only utilizing your bodily functions to burn calories, find out the calories your body needs for it s daily functions, and plan your meals to accommodate just that. It means you will not gain extra weight, even though you may not lose the weight you carry already, except you eat less than what your body needs, which then forces your body to dig into its fat reserves for what it needs.
With all these actions, the negative effects of sedentary living can be reduced and potentially eradicated.
Coach B.
