Are You an Active Couch Potato?
Did you know you can be considered both “physically active” and “sedentary” at the same time? When you are, you earn the title of “active couch potato”. In today’s world, it can be easier than you think to fall into this category and I’ll explain how.
“Physically active” is technically a term that indicates you meet the minimum amount of weekly exercise based on guidelines issued by various health organizations like the CDC, WHO, and American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). ACSM guidelines say that we need to accumulate 150–300 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise each week (think: walking for 30–60 minutes, 5 days per week) and perform muscle strengthening exercises at least two days per week. Hit those numbers and you are a “physically active” individual.
Consider how much time that would take you each week. On the high end, you’re doing 5 hours of walking and, let’s say, 2 hours of muscle strengthening exercises. So, 7 hours per week. Our health care system would be a lot less burdened if we all managed to do that level of exercising week after week. However, we have to remember that there are 168 hours in a week and you’re moving for just 7 of them, in this scenario. That’s like 4% of your time; what are you doing the other 96% of the time?
If you’re sitting at a desk, sitting in a car, sitting at the kitchen table, sitting in the “good chair” in front of the TV, and then lying in bed at the end of the day, you may be an “active couch potato”. You meet the basic requirements for structured exercise but you’re still too immobile the rest of your day. It’s about total sedentary time. Research is now showing that our formal exercise, while certainly very beneficial, cannot counteract all of the negative consequences of so much immobility and inactivity.
The two primary consequences of this inactivity are higher levels of insulin resistance (foundation of Type 2 diabetes) and higher triglycerides in the blood (significant risk factor in cardiovascular disease). Regular exercise provides a great many benefits to us, both physically and mentally, and it helps with these two particular aspects of health as well, but it may not be enough. We’ve managed to create systems in our work and home lives that allow us to move very little on a daily basis and that’s not what our bodies were designed for — we need to move.
So, what does this mean? What are you supposed to do with this information now? First, it doesn’t mean more exercise; it simply means you need to move your body more in the regular course of your day. If you have a desk-bound job, you need to stand up and move for 5–10 minutes every 1–2 hours. Get out of your chair, walk down the hallway to speak with a co-worker, walk up to the floor above you and back down, stand up when you take calls (you don’t need to be sitting for all of your phone calls, right?), stretch and move your limbs through bigger ranges of motion than they typically move through in your usual work activities. You’ve heard some of these before, I’m sure — take the stairs instead of the elevator; park farther away from the door; set up a reminder on your computer or phone to remind you to move every 60–120 minutes, etc.
At home, try to find ways to incorporate more movement into your activities. Again, walk up and down the stairs during commercials or between episodes of shows you’re binge-watching. Don’t ask someone else to “run upstairs and get me that…”; you’re a strong, independent person, you can get that thing yourself! Look for opportunities to spend time moving with the family — walks, hiking, games in the yard, riding bikes, running around the house with the kids.
You can also use the latest technologies to counteract all the technology in our lives that has made it less necessary for us to move. FitBits, Apple Watches, and the like, can be great tools for reminding us to move and for showing us just how much, or how little, we move. Use them to set goals for yourself and do your best to hit those targets every day.
When you engage and contract your muscles, it creates a cascade of effects within your body that helps to drive your metabolism, boost your immune system, strengthen you, clear your mind, and energize you. The more you engage your muscles, the healthier you’ll be and it doesn’t always need to be strenuous activity; you just need to move. Move more, feel better, and be better. Good luck!
