You go to the gym a few times a week, always eat your vegetables and avoid fatty foods. You’ve sworn off tobacco, and drink alcohol in moderation. Now, research suggests that may not be enough to keep you healthy if you spend most of your day sitting at a desk.

This research, while still in the early stages, is beginning to suggest that adults who are active on a regular basis – engaging in physical activity such as running, cycling or working out at a gym – but spend most of their time sitting have the same health risks they would face if they were fully sedentary.

Health problems

“Think of it like exercise and smoking,” says Travis Saunders, a PhD candidate with the healthy active living and obesity research group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa. “Even if you exercise, it’s still bad for you to smoke.”

Health experts have linked sedentary behaviour to numerous health problems and diseases, including heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity and even premature death.

The easiest way to avoid being sedentary and to decrease the risk of these health conditions is simply to get up and move.

While there are no specific guidelines currently available, Saunders says, a good rule of thumb is to get up from your desk roughly every 20 to 30 minutes, even if it’s just to walk to the water cooler or the printer.

Kelly Murumets, president and CEO of ParticipAction in Toronto, offers this simple rule: “If you’re sitting, you should stand. If you’re standing, you should move. If you’re moving, you should move more.”

While having to get up from your desk constantly might seem like an inconvenience on a busy day, there are many small things you can do to keep yourself moving.

For example, Murumets says, instead of sending an email to a colleague, walk across the office to speak with him or her in person. Instead of going to the office kitchen for a coffee, take a walk outside to a local coffee shop.

Remind yourself

Set up automatic reminders to make sure you get up and move around frequently throughout the day. Set timers on your computer, watch or smartphone, Saunders says, to prompt yourself to get up, stretch and walk around a bit.

As well, remember that even if you do move around during the day, that is no excuse to skip the gym altogether.

“Exercise is still absolutely important,” Saunders says. “It’s one of the most important things you can do for your health.”

According to the Ottawa-based Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, the average adult requires 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise each week in order to be considered physically active.

“It’s not just walking around every day,” says Lindsay Wright, co-ordinator with Be Fit For Life at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. “It’s brisk walking – something that makes your heart rate a little faster, makes you sweat more and makes you feel a little more out of breath.”

To provide health benefits, Wright adds, physical exercise should be done in bouts of at least 10 minutes.

As well, beyond increasing your heart rate at least twice a week, it’s also important to focus on muscle-strengthening activities, such as weight training.

Take the stairs

To get more exercise in your day, Murumets suggests, walk up and down the stairs for 15 minutes during lunch.

Or introduce “walking meetings,” in which you and a staff member have a discussion while taking a brisk walk outside.

Even for the habitual couch potato, Murumets says, it’s never too late to get moving and reduce the risk of future health problems.

The key to healthier living, she says, is to make an effort throughout the day and get moving.

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