First Fitness Insight and Challenge for the New Year - for a

MzFury

Okay, I've made a fitness resolution: shift my days away from sedentary, big time. Thank you, Timex, for a shot of insight and a new fire under my rear.

What my new heart rate monitor has shown me is that I burn only minuscule fractions of calories per minute when seated calmly, typing, at my desk.

That is: I show a ZERO calorie burn over 10 or more minutes.

Now, I know that inactivity is brutal, but I didn't expect my more sedentary periods to be a total flatline - probably near to my BMR, by this thing's reckoning.

My overall daily burn without exercise is probably decent because I am walking around and doing functional activities at least twice a day for 10 - 20 minutes each, often closer to an hour or more total depending on chores, cooking, weather, etc., but according to this thing, I'm betting I'm more metabolically flat on many days than I have suspected.

So this is new food for thought. As I go into the new year, I'm going to think of ways to increase my sedentary activity, and I'd love to hear from any of you at desk jobs who might decide to do the same.

I'd like to turn all my usually 0-cals-per-minute minutes into at least half-or-one-cal per minute, hopefully more. I want my average TDEE per minute, WITHOUT exercise, in a 16-hour day, to be at least 2 calories, or about 1920 per day MINIMUM.

First, before I implement anything specific, I've begun fidgeting with my legs while seated at my desk - tapping my heels and toes, tensing up enough to swing my feet back and forth a bit. It's funny, but it's burning at least a half or one calorie a minute, I'd say.
The next thing I'm going to do is get my stability ball back in place as my desk chair. I used to use it this way, then during a period when I didn't have one because SOMETHING (cat??) caused it to deflate permanently, I got out of the habit. But I'm going to see what the difference is sitting fairly calmly on the ball again, since my abs and legs are generally slightly engaged in that arrangement.
At some point soon, I'm going to look into those tiny bike pedals they make that are pretty cheap, for exactly having some form of portable "stationary bike". Uh - I won't be using that at the same time as the ball but I believe a quite slow, steady cycle while I work could be easy and reassuringly busy for my body.
Finally, I'm going to make a concerted effort (say, using a repeating timer on my new sport watch!) to GET UP every 20 - 30 minutes of being at my desk and DO something briefly - fetch some water, start a load of laundry or do just 5 minutes of some chore, then return for more computer work. I'm sure I won't be perfect with that, but if I can manage to do that a great deal, I'll be ahead on several fronts, and probably more productive and focused. If I were in an office, I think I would set the timer, and if there were ANYTHING I could walk to do (say, chat with a coworker versus e-mail about a project, or filing, or grabbing a cup of water), I would do it. If not, I would pick up paperwork, stand up, and walk in place for 5 minutes while reviewing the papers.

Any of you out there have any other ideas? We're animals that were born to run and play and rest at rest and meal times, not sit perfectly still and only do work in our brains - I'm gonna let more of that animal out in 2012.

Happy New Year!

-Hannah