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please submit to us and we make it public here. [ send your article ] Weight loss articlesTurning your workday into weight lossBut one expert believes it can be a big part of the solution just by redesigning the office and the office workday. This way, in just six months, the Mayo Clinic's Dr. James A. Levine and colleagues helped 18 Minneapolis office workers lose a total of 156 pounds. Levine's "healthy office" approach is rooted in what experts call "non-exercise activity thermogenesis" (NEAT). According to Levine, NEAT happens naturally, as humans burn off energy with everyday movements such as standing up, fidgeting, turning, bending and walking. It is distinct from the other primary forms of energy-expending processes, including active exercise, at-rest metabolism, or digestion. For most sedentary Americans, the amount of energy burnt off by active exercise is almost zero compared to what's lost via NEAT. Levine believes NEAT accounts for between 15 percent (for very sedentary people) to about 50 percent (among the very active) of daily energy expenditure. And even minor lifestyle changes can boost one's daily NEAT by about 20 percent, he said. In 2007 Levine and his colleagues launched the idea to make the work office a more NEAT-inducing place. I fact, it was a six-month experimental weight loss program targeting 18 office employees at a small financial staffing business in Minneapolis. First of all , the firm's offices "re-engineered". Chairs and traditional desk-seating were replaced with desks that came pre-attached to treadmills, and walking tracks were installed around the circumference of the office to facilitate "walking meetings." This wasn't exercise, Levine stressed. "You don't run at work, you walk. And what we are trying to do in fact is to get people to walk at the office while they work at a pace of 1.1 miles an hour," Levine said. That pace falls within the NEAT category of energy use. Other changes subtly encouraged more movement. The office's landline phones were replaced with mobile sets; spaces for games such as Wii and foosball were made available, and employees were also outfitted with high-tech activity monitors. Staff was also offered nutrition counseling. The result: Six months later the 18 study participants had lost a total of 156 pounds, of which 143 pounds were pure body fat. On average, employees lost nearly nine pounds each, 90 percent of it in fat, and their triglyceride (blood fat) levels plunged by an average of 37 percent. Very important, weight loss did not come at the price of workplace productivity. More than that, staffers had boosted corporate revenue by almost 10 percent after three months in the reconfigured office. # # # There's more on NEAT at the Mayo Clinic. (SOURCES: James A. Levine, M.D., Ph.D., professor, medicine, department of endocrinology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.; Lona Sandon, R.D., assistant professor, clinical nutrition, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas; Cedric X. Bryant, Ph.D., chief science officer, American Council on Exercise, San Diego) please submit to us and we make it public here. [ send your article ] NOTE: Issues on this site regarding men's health and their concerns, are provided for information only, and are not meant to substitute for the advice of your own physician or other medical professional. Weightloss-Report.org does not endorse any specific product, service or treatment. |
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