Bea Loozer
A new illness has been identified and given various names. Sometimes it’s called the sitting disease. I think here in the Sun Lakes area we could refer to it by our favorite chair; call it the recliner disease. No offense intended to those who use a favorite recliner. In fact, I’m writing this article on my iPad while sitting in my recliner, which is showing its wear but is so comfy that it’s still my relaxation seat of choice.
“So what is recliner disease?” you ask. Health specialists have long recognized that sitting too much isn’t good for us. Duh. But that’s not what this is about. I was surprised to hear that, according to articles I read, sitting for over an hour can undo the positive effect of those wonderfully healthy workouts you are committed to. Each hour we sit we need to also get the body moving.
You swim regularly each morning. Or you do your Slimnastics or NIA. You might even play golf or tennis. Then there is the part of the day and evening when you might read, work at the computer or watch TV. For hours. There’s the problem. What “they” are saying now is that we shouldn’t sit for more than an hour; and I bet most of us have gotten into the habit of doing that.
I work hard in the morning and I don’t want five or six hours of being a couch potato or recliner idler to ruin my plan to continue living a long and healthy life. We discussed this in a recent Goalie meeting and came up with a long list of things we can easily get up to do after each hour of sitting. And we decided that a 10 minute break is doable, varying the activity each hour.
So drink a little more water and stand up to do one of the following: walk in place during TV ads, do some shoulder shrugs and head rolls, walk around the block, go into the kitchen to get a head start on dinner prep, get out the dust rag. Probably nobody likes to dust, but try getting up to tackle one small area at a time (one window’s blinds, for example). Or do some chair yoga. Give some thought to what will work for you.
Join us this Saturday morning for our regular meeting. You will meet some new friends who are working on this disease and also some who say it’s not a problem for them because they tend to be hyper. We’re a group of individuals.
Weigh-in is between 7:00-7:45 a.m. in the Mirror Room of Sun Lakes Country Club. The meeting starts after weigh-in next door in the Friendship Room. Contact Rita at 895-2559 for more information.