Is your chair (& sitting in it) at work and at home in front of a computer a curse?

Yeah it probably is. Of course minimal physical exercise, food issues (HFCS) and poor diet, are certainly BIG contributors to health problems; the move from factories and farms to chairs in front of monitors in offices and call centers may be the biggest enemy. This is a truly enormous public health issue that I think is being totally ignored. Even though below it shows studies in the 1950's started shedding light on the issue.

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/menshealth/most-dangerous-thing-youll-do-all-day

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“It all started last summer, when Assistant Editor Maria Masters came across a shocking study in the Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (one of dozens of research journals we comb each month as we put together the magazine). Scientists at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana analyzed the lifestyles of more than 17,000 men and women over about 13 years, and found that people who sit for most of the day are 54 percent more likely to die of heart attacks.

That’s right—I said 54 percent!

Masters immediately called the lead researcher at Pennington, a professor named Peter Katzmarzyk. Turns out, this wasn’t the first study to link sitting and heart disease. Similar research actually dates back to 1953, when British researchers found that (sitting) bus drivers were twice as likely to die of heart attacks as (standing) trolley operators.

Here’s the most surprising part: “We see it in people who smoke and people who don’t,” Katzmarzyk told Masters. “We see it in people who are regular exercisers and those who aren’t. Sitting is an independent risk factor.””
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Toss in spiraling obesity rates for both adults and children and the sitting curse starts to become clear.

This is all increased by home TV and computer use, activities where one typical sits for hours a day while doing.

So while smoking is attacked, and rightly so, sitting is cherished. I guess big money benefits from the resulting health issues too much. Even though the health risks are both pretty clear.

Stand - don't sit.

But, I don't.
At least every 30-45 min I get up and I walk around the floor bullshitting.
If nothing else, I MOVE.

I hope that makes a difference.

It's like 8 hours of core training every day. Pretty comfy too.

She's 62, has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, bad hips, bad shoulders, and in general is in rather sad shape.

At 62, also, I have a job where I'm on my feet about 7 hours a day, moving pallets around that only weigh about a ton, lifting cartons of up to 75 pounds, and in general, stay active and working my body. I'm not on any meds at all, and the doctor has to look extra hard to even TRY to find something wrong with me.

I guess staying active, and working hard all your life does help!!!

All one has to look at is evolutionary biology: humans were never meant to sit all day and otherwise live a sedintary lifestyle. We were designed to move, hunt and gather food and generally work to survive. Modern lifestyle has completely turned this notion on its head for a lrge segment of the population.

My job is very much in this category where I sit for several hour a day. I combat this by walking a couple of times a day during work hours, working out in my off hours and riding a bike to work when time and weather permit.

I used to get back problems all the time from corporate office furniture, to the point where I needed to visit a chiropractor to mitigate the pain.

At least having set myself up to work from home I can do the following:

- wear loose clothing that doesn't restrict movement or breathing
- use my own chair/monitor
- have a purring cat on my lap as I code
- stretch regularly without getting strange looks and comments
- step out on the patio to soak up some mentally and physically healthy sunlight
- take a break when I need to, not when the clock says I should... of course that works the other way around too (working at 3AM sometimes - it's worth it though)
- have a purring cat rubbing against my legs as I code
- not have to share a bathroom/other facilities with people who don't wash their hands (and if you've ever worked in a large corp you know that once you get enough people it is near-certain that one or more of those people don't wash their hands)
- no drive, no commute, no risk of injury and accident on the roads
- have a purring cat sitting on my head as I code
- use of my own kitchen, certainty that no one will steal my lunch (or dump it as per some stupid corporate policy)
- no exposure to other people bringing diseases into the office
- control my own heat/AC
- play my guitar for stress release
- surf the news to make my stress go back up
- have a purring cat using my chair as a scratching post as I code
- no social stress, no putting up with the inevitable fat chick who slathers herself in perfume so badly that you can smell it in her cubicle even when she's been on vacation for two weeks (and every office has one), no putting up with alpha-male bullshit mind games, no having what I can say and do restricted by reams of lawyer-driven agreements, etc.
- and probably most importantly, the freedom to tell a bad client to fuck off, eat a bag of dicks, and die in a fire (that would be this guy: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell )


Now... it's not all kittens and roses, I did take a massive pay cut - going freelance, I made literally 10% of what I was making in corp at first. Now I'm up to about 40% and still rising (mostly in proportion to how my non-technical business skills are improving), but I don't have many of the costs of the office - business clothes, gas, having to buy lunch expensively rather than cook it fresh and cheaply myself, and so on, and of course I'm in a far lower tax bracket, so with regards to net take-home I'm already halfway there.

But I just can't see myself ever going back to an office, unless my survival literally depended on it. The quality of life I have now is so incomparably better, and ultimately that is why I work, to better myself and my standard of living. If you, like me, are not tied down by financial commitments, I very strongly recommend trying to find a way to earn a living this way. And if you have kids (or pets) to care for, it is much better for them too!

This is me. Up one side and down the other. In a sitting position, that is.

I've known it. I can feel it.

Let me back up...

I used to be a construction worker and I got tired of the layoffs. I also hated driving through rush hour traffic to and from every day. I hated the gas expenses just to get to work. I hated participating in the poisoning of our air. I was mildly weary of the job, though deep down I really loved it. I was at a point where I just wanted to make a change. So I learned a set of internet-related skills in my spare time and got very aggressive one day and got lucky enough to make the most unlikely of phone calls and before I knew it I was self-employed and working from my home and calling all my own shots.

That was five years ago and I've been sitting at this desk almost literally every since, sans sleep time. When I was working outside I was healthy as a horse, though I was a little on the heavy side. But now, I've gained at least 20 lbs. And my butt and calves hurt. And some other stuff. And I know it's from too much sitting. I do get up and walk around a lot - and get a snack while I'm at it. I'll go fishing now and then or go our and run errands. But usually I'm right here in this chair.

The problem is I have a healthy apatite on top of the sitting so much. It's easy enough to go for a walk but it's hard as hell for me to stick to a serious, healthy diet.

So, any advice on how I get myself out of this situation would be greatly appreciated.

No shit. Look it up. If you get a cheap assed treadmill that works at 1 to 2 miles per hours you WILL lose that 20 pounds in 3-5 months. And decreased that independent variable of heart attacks.

Please look it up and give it a shot and let me know if it works.


PS- what i mean is setting the treadmill up at 1-2mph at your computer workstation. So you are walking slowly 6-10 hours a day. do the math on calories per hour, it will work, plus the benefit of not sitting and heart attacks. There was a thing on CBS around 18 months ago that talks about this.