The Dangers of Sitting, Vegetables First, My Go-to Cleaning Ingredient
Lightbulbs & Pearls | 012
The Dangers of Too Much Sitting
A trending topic in the wellness sphere is the impact of prolonged sitting on our overall health. Although I was mildly interested in the standing desk craze that kicked off about 15 years ago, I’m not one to hop on bandwagons (** Note: I’d choose either “trends” or “bandwagons”), so it didn’t resonate with me until recently. I think sitting is like most things in life—when we are young and our bodies are resilient, we don’t pay much attention. Those days are over. Even though I’m committed to daily exercise, I’m noticing that I have to work harder to counteract the effects of age… and I believe that sitting is one area to weave in simple practices for positive change.
I have recently had the opportunity to try a standing desk out for several days a month, and I have to admit I really like it for many reasons. In general, with constant micro-movements, my body is more activated, so I not only feel less fatigue at the end of a work day, but I also stay more mentally focused. I wasn’t stiff from sitting in one position too long, and my back has no issues with being uncomfortable in a chair or unnatural position.
But comfort is the least of sitting issues. According to a recent post by Dr. Mercola (and a litany of other articles and publications), prolonged sitting promotes many chronic diseases and conditions including type 2 diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, even heart disease and stroke, not to mention metabolic disorders and mental health. Most likely, these issues stem from the general lack of blood flow to all systems as a result of the body being in a sedentary state. The lymphatic system, in particular, depends on our bodies movement to circulate; if it becomes sluggish, the body is less able to cleanse itself of toxins and fight infection.
Interestingly, within 90 seconds of going from sitting to standing, many of the muscular and cellular systems that process blood sugar, triglycerides, and cholesterol are activated. All of this activated by simply engaging our legs to carry our bodyweight. On the flip side, even for people who regularly are able to fit in 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week, there is an association of sitting with “waist circumference, systolic blood pressure and glucose levels—a phenomenon referred to ‘active couch potato syndrome.’” Side fun fact, fossil records indicate when man traded in nomadic lifestyles for a settled one, bone density decreased—even though they were still hunter-gatherers.
Dire headlines such as “Sitting is the new smoking” are loudly ringing alarm bells, and mounting evidence seems to support these claims. Essentially, the dangers of too much sitting go far beyond merely decreasing blood flow to the legs staying sedentary can affect the synergistic functioning of all our body systems. While there are no hard and fast rules about how long is too long—I’ve seen recommendations from “don’t sit more than 3 hours a day” to “get up and move every 50 minutes”—we should strive to weave in as much standing and movement into our day as possible.
I start my day standing at the kitchen island (barefoot, of course) tapping away on my laptop. Before settling in at my desk, I usually get a walk or strength training session in. Then throughout the morning I frequently get up to do small tasks simply to get up and move…even if it’s just to stand on the porch and get a little more of the morning sun. 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, it all starts to add up. Plus, it develops an active versus sedentary mindset…and what the mind wills, the body follows.
As this is heart health month, it’s important to keep the blood pumping, so let’s stand up for good health!
Eat Your Vegetables First
Longstanding practices stand the test of time for a reason, and eventually become instinctual. I believe that eating vegetables at the beginning of the meal just may be one of those things. Salads preceding a meal date back to ancient Roman times, when dining began with a simple green salad drizzled with a salt and oil dressing. This custom endured throughout history, although I think we mucked it up a bit with all the heavy creamy dressings in the middle of the last century…
All these millennia later, science is revealing that eating vegetables at the beginning of a meal can have more than several positive effects. Known as “meal sequencing,” eating fiber-rich vegetables before the protein and carbohydrates (in that order) makes the body feel full longer, which could help you to not overeat. But going a step further, vegetables also blunt the effect of the dreaded glucose spike during the meal.
A plethora of studies confirm that eating vegetables encourages increased levels of a natural hormone, GLP-1, which slows down digestion. Once digestion is slowed down, two things happen: we stay full longer and glucose enters the bloodstream at a slower pace, which means that the body can metabolize it more efficiently than if it hits the system all at once. While at the base level, too much glucose can lead to the weight gain that so many people struggle with (especially mid-life), it can lead to a host of cascading consequences including type 2 diabetes and other ailments.
Establishing the simple habit of eating fiber-rich vegetables such as green peas, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and asparagus (just to name a few) before other food at mealtime will not only have the short-term benefits of staving off those sneaky extra pounds, but could very well also result in long-term blood sugar control that may reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes…thus increasing our health span.
My Do-all, Go-to, Must-have Cleaning Ingredient
When my husband and I were trying to get pregnant 20-plus years ago, I went down every rabbit hole I came across to increase our chances. While some were dead ends, others were very fruitful and became practices that have developed into lifelong habits. Well before it became a catchphrase, I tossed the toxins. Literally. One day I made a clean sweep and threw away our non-stick pans, plastic cooking tools, and all of the heavily fragranced, chemical-laden cleaning products throughout our home. All of these are endocrine disrupters that essentially wreak havoc with the natural function of our hormones and can contribute to a myriad of health issues including cancers, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and infertility…just to name a few.
Thinking back to my childhood, the cornerstone of my mom’s cleaning arsenal was white vinegar. So, I did some reading and sure enough, people in the natural cleaning space still swore by white vinegar as a household cleaning powerhouse. Why is that? Well, it contains approximately 5% acetic acid, which can break down the molecular structure of dirt, oils, and bacteria. The upside is that it is all-natural, colorless, and—with dilution—can be tailored to be used in many different applications. The downside is, that because it’s an acid, it shouldn’t be used on surfaces such as natural stone, cast iron, aluminum, and softwood. It also needs to be rinsed very well with water to stop the acidic chemical reaction.
We use so much of it in our house that I typically buy several 5-liter jugs at a time to have in the laundry and utility rooms; plus my husband keeps a supply in the garage to dispense of rust on tools and car parts. Coincidentally, he right now has a tray with old screws that he’s been soaking for several days. It’s crazy how—with patience—the rust literally falls away. He then submerges the parts in a water bath to stop the chemical process. Pretty simple stuff.
There are entire websites that detail various solutions and dilutions for household chores, but here are a few of the ways we use white vinegar:
Laundry
• Washer deep clean Put 1 cup of baking soda in the drum, and run a cycle on the hottest water available. Next cycle, pour two cups of vinegar into the soap dispenser and run again. Finish up with a rinse cycle. I just did this last week and it works wonders to freshen the washer.
• Clothes Rinse Instead of fabric softener (which gunks up both the clothes and washer), I pour about ½ a cup of undiluted vinegar in the dispenser and it breaks down any unrinsed detergent which can make clothes feel stiff. No, the clothes do not smell like vinegar at all. I’ve seen fragranced white vinegar, but honestly, I don’t see the need and extra expense.
• Soak I soak whites and old technical/performance fabric. One time I could not get the odor out of my husband’s running shirt, so I soaked it for 4 days in a solution of about a cup of white vinegar to about a gallon of water… and it released actual sheets of filmy residue. (It’s pretty yucky, but I took a picture, see below.) After a good rinse and a thorough cleaning cycle, it was odor-free. Thank goodness.
To get dingy, yellowed, stained whites clean, I add about a cup to a sinkful of laundry detergent and 1/2 cup of baking soda (another organic matter dissolver) for a long soak. Yes, baking soda and vinegar do create a reaction and bubble up if used at full strength, but in the presence of so much water, the initial reaction is minimal, if any. If the stains are really stubborn, I’ll add about 1/4 cup of hydrogen peroxide and let them go for several days. Then I hang them in the sun for good measure.
Bathroom
• Toilet In this instance, I want the chemical reaction, so I pour about a cup of vinegar into the toilet bowl and then sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of baking soda on the sides and top. It will bubble up but calm down rather quickly, and then I swish it all around and let it sit for at least 15 minutes before rinsing.
Kitchen
• Stove I keep vinegar in a glass spray bottle and clean the stove after making steaks and anything that splatters. The cooktop wipes up streak-free.
• Sink We have a sink grate (which I love, by the way, and highly recommend). Every so often I fill the sink with a couple inches of hot water and a cup of vinegar, let it sit for a while, and then brush it clean. I also scrub the sink with the vinegar water and it all rinses beautifully.
• Oven: I’ve cleaned both the glass and the inside by making a paste with baking soda and a little dish soap, spreading it on, letting it work for a while, and then wiping it off with a damp towel. Depending on how dirty your oven is, it may take more than one treatment.
If you haven’t tried distilled white vinegar to tackle a few household chores, give it a whirl!