Tip #17 for increasing metabolism: Fidget, stand, wiggle…just plain get up and MOVE more! It’s frightening, but the newest emerging research to date shows that sitting for hours on end (such as say behind a computer or at a desk) not only increases our risk of overweight and obesity (even if we exercise) but also ups our odds of developing high blood pressure, thickening and hardening of the arteries, arthritis, tension headaches, blood clots, inflexibility, poor posture, chronic neck and back pain and low bone mass, among others! Our fix-it strategy for avoiding these negative consequences: get up and move for at least 5 minutes every hour. We should be setting our clocks by it. Do something, do anything (walk to the bathroom, take a couple of flights of stairs, walk the halls) just move! Even just standing for five minutes while making a phone call, instead of sitting, can make a huge difference. • A recent study in the European Heart Journal revealed that people who made a habit of regularly standing up had a waist circumference that averaged 1 ½ inches smaller than chronic ‘sitters’ who avoid getting up on a regular basis. • Chronic ‘fidgeters’ (people who regularly ‘wiggle’ their foot, tap a pencil or move around in their seat) are shown to have a higher metabolic rate than those who never ‘fidget’.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 02:07:18 +0000