A Simple Trick I Use to Avoid Prolonged Sitting

When I was a personal trainer, my feet and back used to hurt from standing for hours to train my clients.

Now that I work from home, most of my time is spent sitting in front of my laptop and on the phone with my clients. As a result, I have a different set of problems.

I’ve found that sitting for a long time can easily cause tightness in my hips and lead to poor posture and other problems.

By the way, if you’re wondering if I have a standing desk, the answer is No (I wrote a blog post about this for the Thriving Women in Business Magazine “What’s Better? A Standing Desk or Sitting?” You can read the article here.)

Basically, I work best when I’m seated, rather than standing; that is, for most of the work I do now, coaching over the phone.

While it’s easy for my body to experience tightness and pain due to sitting, I make sure to move my body frequently every day during the week, which is the best medicine.

My usual workout schedule is strength training on Mondays, Fridays, and either Saturday or Sunday, some type of endurance exercise on the elliptical or treadmill on Tuesday and Thursday, and yoga on Wednesday.

My rest day is either Saturday or Sunday, but I still try not to sit too much. This is called an “active rest,” meaning I don’t sit on the couch all day. Instead, I’ll spend a lot of the day out and about walking around and exploring the city.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you adopt my exercise regimen; rather I’m just sharing what works for me and my schedule. It does tend to change seasonally, however; but typically, it looks like that. What works for you might look totally different based on your needs.

What I wanted to share with you today isn’t my workout schedule; instead it’s a little trick that I do all the other hours I’m working throughout the week that helps me avoid prolonged sitting.

My hope is that if you have a job that requires you to sit a lot (or if you choose to sit because you do better work that way like me), then I hope this helps.

My trick begins with the commitment to drink half of my body weight in water everyday. For me, that comes out to about five 20oz. cups of water a day.

Are you seeing where this is leading?

Yep, this much water makes me have to get up about every 60-90 minutes to use the restroom.

This is how I make sure I get my water in everyday as well as guaranteeing that I don’t sit for more than 90 minutes at a time – killing two birds with one stone!

In case you’re wondering how much water YOU should be drinking, it’s the same. No, not 20oz. per se, rather you do want to drink half of your body weight in ounces.

Since I weigh 200 pounds, half of my body weight is 100 pounds, which means I need to drink 100oz of water everyday if I want to feel and perform at my best, and of course, keep from sitting too long!

Go ahead and figure out how much water you need to drink every day. Oh, and 25% of that number should be consumed in the morning, since you wake up dehydrated (due to no water for several hours while sleeping).

One more thing: I also add a small pinch of Celtic sea salt in my water. Celtic sea salt provides extra minerals your water is missing. Don’t add too much, though. If it tastes salty, you’ve put too much. You shouldn’t taste the salt at all.

Whether you have to sit a lot or not, be sure to drink half of your body weight in ounces a day. Sure you’ll have to use the restroom more often, but you’ll also feel better, manage your weight, be more focused, and therefore more productive at work – heck, just do better work in general because your brain is functioning at its best and you feel great!

Kim