
How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism - Cyclone_
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/article-how-your-office-job-is-affecting-your-metabolism/
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Darmani
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 that.

They're claiming there is no difference between groups because they were
unable to show that, if there was an inherent difference, the chance they'd
see these results is at most 5%. There's an easy way to obtain such a result:
small sample size. And, indeed, they only compared 2 groups of 5 people.

There is a proper way to show two groups are the same, and it's called
"equivalence testing." It has the same kind of statistical requirements that
normal testing does. What they did instead is totally statically invalid.

There's not a soft way to put it: this study proves nothing. Let it be an
example in training your defenses against bad science.

~~~
ourmandave
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.

~~~
iheartpotatoes
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.

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magnamerc
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.

~~~
radar
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.

~~~
bootsz
My opinion, from my own experience: Sure, that definitely works. But the
choice of cutting fat is kind of arbitrary. You can do the same with sugar &
carbs and get basically the same result w.r.t weight loss. I think this
illuminates the real underlying issue with modern diets which is _not_ that we
eat "too much of X", but rather "too much of everything, too frequently".
Approaches like this work not because "fat is bad" or "carbs are bad", but
because they provide a simple, concrete framework for diet choices that ends
up reducing overall calorie consumption.

~~~
radar
It's just way easier to rack up calories if the thing you're eating is higher
in fats. Remember that fats have no fiber (neither does protein, but that's
another conversation), so you won't 'feel' as full, which can easily lead to a
much higher calorie ingestion rate that you're body won't be able to keep up
with.

Another big thing is portion control! You hit on the nose with eating too much
of everything. Something else I've done is making myself smaller plates, but
also taking much smaller bites and taking a much longer time to finish the
plate. I make it take as long as possible. That way by the end of the plate I
have a more accurate sense of how hungry I still am or not.

It's tough to summarize all of points of my current regimen since I've pulled
bits and pieces from lots of different sources and put some personal
experience into the mix.

~~~
bootsz
Heh... What's interesting is I personally feel the opposite. I can eat
thousands of calories of carbs/sugar no problem, but I fill up on fat pretty
quick. I did the keto diet for about 4 months and _almost_ never went over my
daily calorie budget, basically without even trying that hard. Most days I had
to remind myself to eat _more_ because I was way under.

I wonder if this is a case for emphasizing that "one size fits all" doesn't
work in dieting, either. It seems likely that satiety for various food sources
might vary based on biology and lifestyle too.

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davimack
I am always conflicted when I see something in here linking to globe n mail,
particularly when the article is basically utter garbage, without any amount
of research involved in it whatsoever. While there may be truth in there, it
is certainly not worthy of even scanning the piece.

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dinduks
This kind of articles are just another excuse for paralysis by analysis and
for people to stay fat.

Most of the time, your metabolism doesn't matter.

And it never matters if you train with high intensity and have a decent muscle
mass.

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loblollyboy
13 hrs is a f __*ton of sitting even for an office job. Anyway I was just
given a standing desk and I feel way better at 5PM.

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superpermutat0r
I wonder if intensity matters. What would the response be if instead of
treadmill one lifted weights with high intensity.

~~~
dinduks
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...](https://roguehealthandfitness.com/importance-exercise-
intensity/?print=print)

~~~
52-6F-62
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.

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manojlds
Very confusing article. At first I thought it is trying to say that if you are
sitting for long periods, exercise can be bad for you. What it's actually
saying is that more you sit, less effective the exercise is.

~~~
ams6110
Maybe this explains why exercise never makes me feel "better" just more tired.

~~~
georgemcbay
Do you stick with it on a regular schedule?

No science here, but anecdotally if I've been slacking off on exercise and
then restart, I feel pretty tired/terrible at first. After a few weeks of
regular routine exercise though, it flips and I feel tired/terrible when I
don't exercise and energized when I do exercise.

~~~
otikik
I have the same experience. My threshold seems to be about 8 days - meaning
that I can resume exercise more or less ok after slacking (or being ill) for 8
days, but after 10 days it costs a lot more and I feel worse afterwards. Of
course it is more like a ramp than a binary thing, but there's a "step" around
the 9th day in the graph.

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YawningAngel
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.

~~~
Raphmedia
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.

~~~
rc_hadoken
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)

~~~
Raphmedia
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.

