Standing Evolution

I heard it on Marketplace this week. Sitting as much as three hours a day takes two years off your life.

To Kai Ryssdal’s credit, he did ask “How do they know?” He didn’t get an answer and I suspect by the time that information filtered from ACADEMIA down to radio-land it would have been horribly compromised in any event,

Popular media aside, there does seem to be a popular consensus that sitting is bad for you. It’s not something, we might theorize, our ancestors had a lot of time for (jogging around as they wove baskets and sharpened arrow points?).

In her book The First 20 Minutes (a goldmine for fitness blurbs) Gretchen Reynolds quotes a sports doctor guy as saying standing appears to burn calories without triggering the urge to consume more calories that plagues weight-loss efforts of serious exercisers.

I work at my (late) father’s antique desk, and I’m not likely to change it. As with most fads, I take the standing desk with a cellar of salt. (I spend at least 20 hours a week at the kitchen counter, cooking & cleaning, and I ain’t thin.)

Still, the reminder that it’s worthwhile to get up off our butts is well taken. Probably the more often the better.

Sneak in 5 reps of something invigorating while you’re up, and check of 1/10th of the 5x10x15 fitness plan!

Progress: Treading water. Wracked my shoulder and have been bobbing back and forth between the stick of public accountability with the carrot of chocolate, but at least that equation stays in my mind.