September 26, 2025 • 24 mins
Is your desk job more dangerous than smoking? In this episode Ben Olliver, Dr. Taylor Waters, and Ryan Stevens break down the overlooked risks of sitting too much and why regular workouts can’t fully offset the damage of a sedentary lifestyle. They reveal the shocking data on mortality, the misconceptions around what health really looks like, and practical ways to integrate movement into your day without adding hours to your schedule. This conversation is a wake-up call for anyone who thinks being active only in the gym is enough.
Chapters
(00:00) Introduction
(01:21) Desk Jobs vs Smoking, Which Is Worse?
(03:21) How Prolonged Sitting Increases Mortality Risk
(05:27) Why Society Normalizes Sedentary Behavior
(08:51) Gym Time Can’t Erase a Sedentary Lifestyle
(13:37) Practical Strategies to Reduce Sitting Time
(17:40) The Power of Walking Pads, Stairs, and Small Habits
(22:31) How Movement Improves Health and Productivity
What’s one small change you’ve made to fight the dangers of sitting? Share your answer in the comments.
To learn more about Supra Human programs: https://www.suprahuman.com
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suprahumanofficial
Interested in joining the team? We are always looking for high performers to join our mission to achieve elite level performance in fitness, nutrition and mindset. View our current career opportunities: https://www.suprahuman.com/careers
Results may vary depending on your condition, starting weight, and commitment to the program.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
For every hour of sitting time per day, there's an increased
risk of death from all 'cause mortality by two to 3%.
How do people start being more active through their day in a
practical and reasonable way? When you speak about life
extension and people who invest money in supplementation or
medical stuff, like really, really expensive when you look
(00:22):
at the potential extension that they get.
If you are more active than not,you are likely going to live
longer. I'm Ryan Stevens.
Doctor Taylor Waters. I'm Ben Oliver.
Welcome to the Superhuman show, Yeah?
Would you rather be a smoker that was highly active or never
smoke a cigarette in your life but be extremely sedentary?
(00:44):
Which one do you think is worse for you in the long run?
Would you rather have? Well, I am one of them.
I don't smoke so. I Which one is worse in the long
run? Obviously it's going to be on a
continuum, but I think a lot of people know more about the smoke
inside of things than they do the seated side of things.
(01:04):
You know, you, you, you buy a pack of cigarettes, as they say
in the USI wouldn't say what we call them in the UK.
It just sounds a little bit different.
There's there's the the photos on there, there's the warnings
on there, but you don't buy a chair and there's like photos on
a chair. Just a £400 person, you use this
too much and this is going to put you in this.
(01:26):
Trouble or whatever. So yeah, I think although I
would, I naturally choose the, the seated life, the sedentary
life. I think a lot of people are, you
know, they talk about the negative consequences of
smoking, but not necessarily thenegative consequences of sitting
down for long periods of time, which so many people do.
So start walking and smoke a protein stick.
(01:49):
If I, I mean, if I, if I in my head, if if you said what does a
smoker look like? 99% of the time I think of a
skinny person. Yeah, I think a skinny person
smoking cigarettes. And if you said, what does a
sedentary person look like? I think of a very overweight
person. I kind of associate the two
because we, we spoke about this on a previous podcast where if
(02:11):
you did smoke, because obviouslyif you work in the office,
you're allowed cigarette breaks.And if you have to go outside to
smoke. So because you smoke a couple of
cigarettes a day, you get to go outside, you get some sunlight,
you get an extra 1520 minutes ofbreak from work a day, which
lowers your stress levels. Cigarettes do suppress your
appetite. So loads of clear evidence that
(02:32):
nicotine is a good appetite suppressant as well.
So then we were arguing, well, is that worse for you than not
smoking? But then you don't get the
breaks, you don't get the sunlight, you don't get the de
stress like that. You'd never be able to make a
study in the long run to comparethe two because there's too many
variables. But it's, it's just an
interesting question because people are kind of like, you
should never smoke. Smoking is terrible but then
(02:54):
because your brother's a doctor and and he was saying if you
smoke less than was it like 5 cigarettes a week or something
that it's. If you smoke less than two a
day. They class it as a non
non-smoker. Well, they don't look at it as
like that writ. They don't go, OK, this is a red
flag that we need to consider. They're like, yeah, OK, this is
not something we need to. To to your point, there's no,
you know, how many hours do you sit a day and then there's like
(03:15):
a risk factor. Well, I think the, the
percentages you're looking at for every hour of sitting time
per day, there's an increased risk of death from all 'cause
mortality by two to 3%. So that if someone is sitting,
you know, 10 hours a day, which is not abnormal by any means.
Like when you, when you think about people who have desk jobs,
(03:35):
well, you work in eight hours. So you probably rack up a good 6
1/2 hours of sitting time there.And that's, and that's just in
work. That's not driving to work,
that's not leisure time at home.That's not it's very easy to
accumulate 10 hours. Yeah.
But even in that, even in that working hours, let's say if they
have like an hour's hour dinner,what do you generally do at
dinner break? Sit down.
So they're constantly sitting down for the full period that
(03:57):
they're like in work. Well, I think the, the
percentage they, that they show up, there is risk of death from
all they, they, they classify someone who has a high sedentary
demo, high sitting time as 10 hours plus.
I think when you're in that 10 hours plus category, the risk of
death more 'cause mortality is at like 34%, something along
(04:18):
those lines. And, and again, 10 hours is so
easy if you've got a sedentary job. 10 hours is is this is.
You, you have to look at it and say, it's not, it's not the
actual physical setting that's doing that because this, this is
where like it's people will makeassociations to the specific
thing, but it's, it's everythingelse that comes with it.
So if, if you're sitting that much a day, you're when do we
(04:38):
eat? We're more likely to sit down
and eat than stand up and eat. So we're probably consuming
calories whilst we sit down. We're not doing exercise and
lack of exercise, You know, we've, we've seen as increased,
you know, get an increased body fat, decreased fitness, all
those other things. So it's, it's kind of by doing
that, you're very, very likely to be doing all of these other
behaviors which increase your risk of all of these negative
(05:00):
things. And so it's, you know, if
someone said, right, well, I'm not going to sit down.
I'm just going to stand up all day.
You're still not exercising and doing all these other things.
So again, people might look at it and be like, I'm just not
going to sit down and say, well,no, it's we're kind of
summarizing everything. And it's, it's like when people
say you didn't sit on your ass all day and go and go and do
(05:22):
stuff and be busy. But it's again, there's so many
variables that kind of just get lumped under that, like the word
sedentary. You have to zoom out and look at
the bigger picture, yeah. But think.
About it as well from from an environmental standpoint what
you've seen over the past say 10years you could probably say
this we're trying to reduce smoking like there's active
(05:44):
efforts to try and reduce smoking within the general
public where again with the warnings on the packets the
price the the price is shooting up through the roof you can't
market cigarettes now on TV you.Can't the cigarettes in the UK,
you can't even see them. Yeah, they have to.
Put them out of out, out of sight whereas sitting down,
we've built a we've built an environment now which very much
(06:07):
facilitates sitting down. It's like, you know, like, like
desk jobs are more common than they've ever been.
There is. You can see the because of all
the research that's coming out on it.
Now you can. See the efforts to.
Try and reduce it. You know, in these some of these
big companies, they are buying standing desks through, for
(06:27):
example, and then people who work from home are buying
standing desks from home. So they're not always sitting
down quite as much. And then you know you have your
your walk in pad from home as well.
Yeah, what about an electric chair that goes off every 15
minutes? Just get up and go for a walk.
So what's funny is so when I wasdoing my master's degree in
Oxford Brookes, not not the Oxford.
For everyone listening. I would not make the.
(06:50):
Not that smart. That was a small, silly,
disabled brother. Yeah, exactly.
And I barely got it. They were trying to do an
initiative on campus to promote using the stairs rather than the
the elevators of the lifts. And so by the stairs they were
putting in for graphs of if you walk X amount of stairs, you'll
(07:14):
burn X amount of calories. And then equally by the lifts,
they would say if you don't do the stairs, like you're like,
basically the opposite. Like if you, if you just use
the, the lift, you're likely to consume X amount or more.
And the, the nutrition department, kind of because I,
because I did sport and exercisenutrition, it was, it was one of
my lecturers that wanted to kindof put it in place.
(07:35):
It was like public health nutrition was a module we did
and they set it all up, you know, so they put all the
infographs on the floor and everything.
Within one day they got complaints from students saying
the steps and the calories burned was triggering to the
students and it made them feel bad.
So all the overweight students felt bad that they were using
(07:55):
the lift and it was shaming themfor the using the lift and all
these things and he was fuming and so.
But my point being, it's very hard in today's society to do
that without someone. You know, no one's done it about
smoking. Yeah.
But when you kind of say, like, oh, if you do this, you're going
to be really, really overweight,it's like, well, all the
(08:16):
overweight people get upset and that kind of thing.
And it's. You're trying to navigate this
really weird. It's very easy.
To value, yeah. Yeah.
It's almost like, is it to do with the societal norms as well?
Like what is accepted now as a norm?
If you go against that, well then Oh no, that's offensive
because that's what we do. Whereas like smoking is not a
(08:37):
societal, that's what we do as anorm.
If they're more like that, the Iknow a lot of people still
smoke, but they're more of an outlier.
So you're OK to to put the outliers out.
But if it's more of a societal norm, then it's like, no, now
you're going against what we do in general.
I don't know this. What's funny as well is if you
look in a lot of European countries, it's like France is a
is a very, very common one, probably one of the lower
(09:01):
obesity rates in the in the world in terms of a country.
And they all smoke after dinner.They all they all still have
their coffee and their cigarettes on their on their
breaks. You go to Turkey, like went to
Turkey on vacation, Everyone smokes, everyone's skinny.
And so if you're, if you're kindof looking at it from a all
'cause mortality standpoint, they're probably living longer
than Americans. Yeah, they, we and the UK, you
(09:22):
know, we've massively shamed smoking, but we're all worse off
than than these guys, which I, Ido find interested.
And by no means am I condoning. It sounds like you're trying to
push it quite. Haven't you someone, someone's
going to be like, you know? Do you have an affiliate with
Marlboro Gold? Use my discount.
Like. The Marlboro Ben Marlboro 10 it.
(09:44):
Just goes to show though, and it's like there's so many
variables that come up play withthis yes you know, that's the
most important thing to note it's.
Just almost like if you are moresanitary, it's just another it's
another Ave. which by whereby we've created society that this
is now the normal of what we do.And then that comes with an
increased risk of these things like heart disease, type 2
diabetes as well. It's just, it's it's hard to
(10:07):
avoid for a lot of people because they're not even
thinking about if people aren't consciously going, I need to
reduce my sedentary time. But what happens is now we're
starting to get more aware of being more sedentary.
It's like, yeah, but I go to thegym and I go to the gym.
Front of what your hour a day, five days a week, which is quite
a lot of exercise time for a lotof people.
(10:28):
But the the negative consequences that come around
with sitting down for 10 plus hours a day, you can't undo
those by your one hour of exercise.
Now in saying that, that doesn'tmean Oh well, the gym's
pointless then because I sit down so much like, no, it
obviously has a there's other benefits to it as well.
But just because you do go to the gym, it doesn't mean that
(10:51):
that you're offset in the risk of all 'cause mortality from
that's that's been accumulated through your seat seating time.
I mean, I'm, I'm a really good example of that because I'll,
I'll train 2 hours a day, five days a week.
And there's some conditioning inthat as well.
So it's not like I'm just static.
Like I'm, I'm rowing, I'm doing a salt bike.
So my watch is probably clockingsome steps incidentally, from
(11:11):
doing that. Then I'll work like do a, do a,
do a day's work and it will be 9:00 PM and I've done 4000
steps. And in my head I'm like, I've,
I've gone, I've gone after it today for two hours.
But if I walked for two hours I'd be getting 1212 to 15,000
steps and would probably burn more calories from from doing
(11:32):
that than my, you know, hour and15 of weights and then 45
minutes of of conditioning. Definitely 100%.
It's always like they call it the sedentary athlete, isn't it?
And I think when you look at theresearch on these things like
they, they group people off and that's what they refer to as the
sedentary athletes. So they're basically when
they're comparing people who exercise but are sedentary and
people who don't exercise but aren't sedentary, that they're
(11:55):
neat, I guess throughout the dayif they are very active.
That's what they grew up as a sedentary athlete, which I would
yeah, I probably put myself because I do, I do have no, I'm
just thinking I might be I mightjust be sad the.
Only one of us is Ryan's not a sedentary athlete because you
know, you, your needs through the day, yeah, is huge.
And you train as well. But he's not the athlete, but he
(12:17):
belly. Trains anymore?
No. He's an active human.
Yeah. That's why I do that though, so
like I'll train like 2-3 times aweek so I got enough time to
walk a lot throughout the day. Obviously that is where you get
your biggest bang for buck with like increase in energy
expenditure, you know. Do you remember Ben a while back
I had that endurance athlete whowanted to drop weight and she
was actively gaining weight, youknow, because obviously you
(12:38):
would do like a 2 hour session, but then you're so tired you're
sitting down the rest of the body down.
Yeah. So over the course of the day
you're not burning as much as someone who's doing.
I know 30 minute waits and then walking 20,000 steps a day.
And this is where I, I remember I've bought.
So in my house, I've got a, I'vegot a seat sit in desk, but I've
got a, a platform that goes on it so I can stand.
(13:01):
And I, when I was hosting the power hour calls at the start,
you see, I was on my feet every time.
But then as my training was ramping up, I was like, I'm not
standing for this, like my legs.So I would put the, the, the,
the platform to one side and I would just sit down doing it.
And even though I knew I should because I, I was actively trying
to reduce my sit in time, but then again, when you do train
(13:22):
hard, your legs do get tired andyou, that drive to actually
stand up for the rest of the day.
It is hard because I'm, I'm trying to focus, I'm trying to
talk, I'm trying to work. I want to constantly start
thinking, Oh my, my legs are tired.
It's quite hard to actually get that job done.
So we, we, we touched on one of them, but I mean, this, this is
the most important part is how do people start being more
(13:43):
active through that day in a, ina practical and reasonable way?
Because say, again, this is no different than saying move more,
eat less doesn't help anyone. We know we need, we all know we
need to be more active. So what are some kind of tips
and tricks that we can give people?
And, and we mentioned the, The Walking pad, you know, and, and
I, I mean, we need an affiliate with because we have, we have so
(14:06):
many clients, because we have a lot of successful clients where
they're on meetings all day and they, they can't be on their
phone because they're presentingthings and they need to be on
Zoom. And so walking like desk
treadmills or walking pads have been a game changer.
Even for our coaches. You jump on our, our coach
meetings, half the team are walking on the meeting because
they know they're going to be infront of their computer doing
(14:28):
check insurance, reaching out toclients and they're not going to
be to get their steps in throughout throughout the day.
So they'll, they'll walk throughthroughout.
And it's, I mean, I've got 1 nowand it's even in the last week
my steps have gone from 6000 to like 14 and it's felt effortless
to do it. So when you speak about like
life extension and people who invest money in supplementation
(14:50):
or medical stuff, like really, really expensive, and when you
look at actually the, the potential extension that they
get, somebody's not even that much.
It's like, oh, this may help if you invest X amount of 1000
where it's like, oh, you can pick up a walking treadmill for
a couple of 100 bucks. And then when you look at the,
the data there of reducing that sedentary time by an hour, 2 to
(15:11):
3% every hour. So now you walk in four hours
instead of sitting for four hours.
That's a, a huge reduction for the return on investment that
that you're getting. So they're worth their weight in
gold. Like one of my one of my clients
who was very sedentary and then I know we work in body
composition more often than not from a fat loss standpoint, was
(15:34):
struggling to drop body weight because he was quite small as
well, but small, but overweight.And then his step counts for
like 3000 a day and he was up. I haven't got time.
I'm on meetings all the time. He got a, he got a walk in
treadmill. He was in 20,000 steps and and
it was like it's easy. It's E and the difference
between 3020 thousand. From what, 1 to 2 lbs of fat?
(15:55):
Oh my God. Without changing your diet.
Well, look, if I would just reeloff the things that I would, I
would like the risk of death from all 'cause mortality
obviously would plummet. His ability to drop body fat,
which in turn would help that isis going to increase 10 tenfold.
Then you've got even just think about like your lower back pain.
People who sit at a desk all dayon my back is so tight.
(16:18):
Your back is weak. It's not tight because it's just
like relaxed all day. Whereas when you're up on your
feet, your back is having to work just to keep yourself up.
So it's like all these things, all these benefits you're going
to get just by being on your feet.
It's again, and it costs about 200 bucks.
Yeah, it's it's worth his weightin gold.
I think another thing as well isthat because like if you, if you
(16:38):
are someone who's like working 8hours a day sitting down right,
then you go and say well you need to find an extra 2-3 hours
like to on top to get like 15,000 steps.
Like, God, where am I going to find that?
So one of the things I look at is like, how can without
spending any extra time, what can I do with my normal day
that's going to allow me to increase my expenditure?
So like, let's say if you work in an office, but you get the
lift up to the, the office everyday, can I take the stays?
(17:02):
Like one of the things that I'veBrian Pennuzzo was an ex client
of a superhuman. Like when he takes his kids to
like baseball or whatever, he'llwalk around the court.
Whereas what do you see most people do?
Sit in the car, sit on the side when you're at home watching TV,
if you've got a walking pad walk.
So you're not spending any extratime, You're basically killing
two birds to 1 stone. Yeah.
And looking for little pockets like that is really really good
(17:22):
and can add up all the time for sure.
Is there any, Is there any? I mean, I I think that's the
number. 1 #100% I would give. Is there any other kind of tips
that you would that you would give clients to to start being
more active? Well, the, again, when you look
at the the researchers out there, they generally say those
(17:43):
more prolonged sitting periods of like 30 minutes plus are
generally the worst. So if you think about it from
that standpoint, like you said, trying to accumulate a load of
1000 steps in one bout, it can seem like a lot.
And then it's from a motivation standpoint, people just don't do
it because like, Oh well, I can't afford to go get 8000
(18:03):
steps after work or before work.I haven't got the time.
Whereas if you. If you set a reminder in your
phone every 30 minutes to do a 10 minute bout whereby and
again, you can still work like how many people work on their
phone they need to check emails or how many people spend time
scrolling social media. It's like, Oh well, that you do
a 30 minute bout of hard work. Then you spend that alarm goes
(18:27):
off. You do a 10 minute bout of
whether you're going to do some more work on your phone, but you
just pacing around the house, walking around the kitchen.
So now you're reducing the frequent frequency of those
longer sedentary periods. But then if you were doing 10
minutes every hour during your 810 hour work day, you're now
going to accumulate a good amount of stamps.
(18:49):
So now at the end, I've only got2000 steps to catch up with.
It's so just setting those reminders to move a little bit
more frequently. Again, whether that is with a
against, some people might not have a step pad or even want to
get a step pad. They might not be in a a
position of work to use a step pad whilst working like there
are times where you like. Trying to read complex things
(19:11):
whilst walking is not always theeasiest, so again that might
suit them them better. Another thing I've got one to
add to that is which has been beneficial for clients is
looking at it is like a weekly average because no one works,
like very few people work seven days a week.
They may get the weekend off. So like they may only be able to
get, I don't know, let's say 5000 steps during the week, but
they may be able to accumulate 2025 steps on the weekend where
(19:32):
they may be sitting down. Now you can go for a hike.
So rather than looking at a daily at a daily target, you
could look at it as like a weekly target.
I. Think the other thing to just to
make everyone aware is you don'thave to go from zero to 100 yes,
if you're sitting 10 hours a dayright now, just going to 9 hours
is is going to be a benefit. I think people think they need
(19:53):
to go from they've been sat downall day, so now they're never
going to sit again. And by no means are we saying
that because I again, it's the. People can perceive it as like,
I'm never going to get 10,000 steps, say what you're doing
two, try for three. And if, when you can
consistently do three, try for four.
And it's going to be a, a very gradual transition over time.
We, I mean, that's like everything we do with clients.
(20:15):
We're never going to just go anddo a complete 180.
We try and just gradually changethings.
And then you look at like, you know, in a year's time and
you're doing 15,000 steps a day.And you used to do 2, but that
wasn't, you didn't go from 2 to 15.
You went from 2:00 to 3:00. And so it's just look at your
day and look where you can just add those little steps in, like
taking the stairs, park a bit further away from the store.
(20:37):
So you've got to walk. If there's any meetings that you
can go for a walk on, go for a walk on.
Obviously, if you if you can afford and want to do a walking
pad, then watch your favorite Netflix episode in in the
evening and walk whilst you do it.
Just, you know, one or two of those things and then just start
stacking them. And you'll be amazed at how fast
that that adds up. I think as well the going back
(21:01):
to the point where I said about breaking up that sedentary time,
like I feel like the the argument against that is people
like, but when I'm busy in work,it's going to break my
concentration if I'm constantly getting reminded to get up and
go walk. But actually when you look, and
I think Alex Hormozi was saying this, I believe it was him,
where he was on about like a productivity hack.
(21:21):
And it's like some people they try and work for 8 hours
straight or like a four hour block because it's such a long
period of time, there's only so much you can concentrate within
that time. And what you find is although
you've worked 4 hours, it's beenvery broken.
It's been very just like slow. Whereas like he's like, well, if
you work flat out for, for half hour or an hour and like there's
(21:42):
no phone, there's nothing. It's just my head's in the game
and I work and then I have a 10 minute break and then go again
and then have a 10 minute break.Then you'll get the
productivity. Over the course of the four,
eight hour period, you actually end up getting more done because
when you're in, you're fully in.And then when you're out, you
actually take a break and have that breathe where I was like if
you try and go for four hours straight, maybe the for the
(22:04):
first hour, half hour, you're very productive and then it
gradually titrates off throughout the.
Rest 1 foot in one foot. So it's like not only now you
reducing sedentary, sedentary time, you're being more healthy,
you're being more active, but you're also now more productive
in work as well. So it's again that's a when you
look at a a return on investmentstandpoint with his weight in
(22:25):
gold that doesn't cost. You a dime?
Yeah. So I think the, you know,
really, really to sum it up is start looking for those areas
where you can add add that activity.
Smoking isn't as bad as you think.
Crop that real for the Instagram.
(22:46):
Smoking is not that bad. No, I think, but again, it's,
it's just a really good comparison because it gets
people to just open their eyes more holistically to everything
that they're doing rather than just pigeonholing certain things
saying like, you know, drink, drinking is bad for you, smoking
is bad for you, these things arebad for you.
And it's like, well, this dose dependent and what else, what
(23:09):
else goes with it? When you drink, do you eat a
load of food when you smoke, do you walk 5 miles whilst you
smoke? And so it's you'll never be able
to know the full kind of the netgain or or loss because there's
so many things that go into it, which we'll we'll never be able
to kind of track in a study. But we do have the general
consensus that if you are more active than not, you are likely
(23:30):
going to live longer. And we can manipulate the
environment and set these thingsin place to enable you to be
more active without pulling awayfrom these other areas that
you're trying to address, like like work and so on.
Awesome. Thank you as always guys for for
tuning in. Be sure to like and subscribe on
YouTube, iTunes and Spotify and we'll see you next time.
If you love this show, please like, share and leave us a five
(23:52):
star review so that we can help more people.
I'm John Matson, reminding you to always go get what's yours.
For every hour of sitting time per day, there's an increased
risk of death from all 'cause mortality by two to 3%.
How do people start being more active through their day in a
practical and reasonable way? When you speak about life
extension and people who invest money in supplementation or
medical stuff, like really, really expensive when you look
(00:22):
at the potential extension that they get.
If you are more active than not,you are likely going to live
longer. I'm Ryan Stevens.
Doctor Taylor Waters. I'm Ben Oliver.
Welcome to the Superhuman show, Yeah?
Would you rather be a smoker that was highly active or never
smoke a cigarette in your life but be extremely sedentary?
(00:44):
Which one do you think is worse for you in the long run?
Would you rather have? Well, I am one of them.
I don't smoke so. I Which one is worse in the long
run? Obviously it's going to be on a
continuum, but I think a lot of people know more about the smoke
inside of things than they do the seated side of things.
(01:04):
You know, you, you, you buy a pack of cigarettes, as they say
in the USI wouldn't say what we call them in the UK.
It just sounds a little bit different.
There's there's the the photos on there, there's the warnings
on there, but you don't buy a chair and there's like photos on
a chair. Just a £400 person, you use this
too much and this is going to put you in this.
(01:26):
Trouble or whatever. So yeah, I think although I
would, I naturally choose the, the seated life, the sedentary
life. I think a lot of people are, you
know, they talk about the negative consequences of
smoking, but not necessarily thenegative consequences of sitting
down for long periods of time, which so many people do.
So start walking and smoke a protein stick.
(01:49):
If I, I mean, if I, if I in my head, if if you said what does a
smoker look like? 99% of the time I think of a
skinny person. Yeah, I think a skinny person
smoking cigarettes. And if you said, what does a
sedentary person look like? I think of a very overweight
person. I kind of associate the two
because we, we spoke about this on a previous podcast where if
(02:11):
you did smoke, because obviouslyif you work in the office,
you're allowed cigarette breaks.And if you have to go outside to
smoke. So because you smoke a couple of
cigarettes a day, you get to go outside, you get some sunlight,
you get an extra 1520 minutes ofbreak from work a day, which
lowers your stress levels. Cigarettes do suppress your
appetite. So loads of clear evidence that
(02:32):
nicotine is a good appetite suppressant as well.
So then we were arguing, well, is that worse for you than not
smoking? But then you don't get the
breaks, you don't get the sunlight, you don't get the de
stress like that. You'd never be able to make a
study in the long run to comparethe two because there's too many
variables. But it's, it's just an
interesting question because people are kind of like, you
should never smoke. Smoking is terrible but then
(02:54):
because your brother's a doctor and and he was saying if you
smoke less than was it like 5 cigarettes a week or something
that it's. If you smoke less than two a
day. They class it as a non
non-smoker. Well, they don't look at it as
like that writ. They don't go, OK, this is a red
flag that we need to consider. They're like, yeah, OK, this is
not something we need to. To to your point, there's no,
you know, how many hours do you sit a day and then there's like
(03:15):
a risk factor. Well, I think the, the
percentages you're looking at for every hour of sitting time
per day, there's an increased risk of death from all 'cause
mortality by two to 3%. So that if someone is sitting,
you know, 10 hours a day, which is not abnormal by any means.
Like when you, when you think about people who have desk jobs,
(03:35):
well, you work in eight hours. So you probably rack up a good 6
1/2 hours of sitting time there.And that's, and that's just in
work. That's not driving to work,
that's not leisure time at home.That's not it's very easy to
accumulate 10 hours. Yeah.
But even in that, even in that working hours, let's say if they
have like an hour's hour dinner,what do you generally do at
dinner break? Sit down.
So they're constantly sitting down for the full period that
(03:57):
they're like in work. Well, I think the, the
percentage they, that they show up, there is risk of death from
all they, they, they classify someone who has a high sedentary
demo, high sitting time as 10 hours plus.
I think when you're in that 10 hours plus category, the risk of
death more 'cause mortality is at like 34%, something along
(04:18):
those lines. And, and again, 10 hours is so
easy if you've got a sedentary job. 10 hours is is this is.
You, you have to look at it and say, it's not, it's not the
actual physical setting that's doing that because this, this is
where like it's people will makeassociations to the specific
thing, but it's, it's everythingelse that comes with it.
So if, if you're sitting that much a day, you're when do we
(04:38):
eat? We're more likely to sit down
and eat than stand up and eat. So we're probably consuming
calories whilst we sit down. We're not doing exercise and
lack of exercise, You know, we've, we've seen as increased,
you know, get an increased body fat, decreased fitness, all
those other things. So it's, it's kind of by doing
that, you're very, very likely to be doing all of these other
behaviors which increase your risk of all of these negative
(05:00):
things. And so it's, you know, if
someone said, right, well, I'm not going to sit down.
I'm just going to stand up all day.
You're still not exercising and doing all these other things.
So again, people might look at it and be like, I'm just not
going to sit down and say, well,no, it's we're kind of
summarizing everything. And it's, it's like when people
say you didn't sit on your ass all day and go and go and do
(05:22):
stuff and be busy. But it's again, there's so many
variables that kind of just get lumped under that, like the word
sedentary. You have to zoom out and look at
the bigger picture, yeah. But think.
About it as well from from an environmental standpoint what
you've seen over the past say 10years you could probably say
this we're trying to reduce smoking like there's active
(05:44):
efforts to try and reduce smoking within the general
public where again with the warnings on the packets the
price the the price is shooting up through the roof you can't
market cigarettes now on TV you.Can't the cigarettes in the UK,
you can't even see them. Yeah, they have to.
Put them out of out, out of sight whereas sitting down,
we've built a we've built an environment now which very much
(06:07):
facilitates sitting down. It's like, you know, like, like
desk jobs are more common than they've ever been.
There is. You can see the because of all
the research that's coming out on it.
Now you can. See the efforts to.
Try and reduce it. You know, in these some of these
big companies, they are buying standing desks through, for
(06:27):
example, and then people who work from home are buying
standing desks from home. So they're not always sitting
down quite as much. And then you know you have your
your walk in pad from home as well.
Yeah, what about an electric chair that goes off every 15
minutes? Just get up and go for a walk.
So what's funny is so when I wasdoing my master's degree in
Oxford Brookes, not not the Oxford.
For everyone listening. I would not make the.
(06:50):
Not that smart. That was a small, silly,
disabled brother. Yeah, exactly.
And I barely got it. They were trying to do an
initiative on campus to promote using the stairs rather than the
the elevators of the lifts. And so by the stairs they were
putting in for graphs of if you walk X amount of stairs, you'll
(07:14):
burn X amount of calories. And then equally by the lifts,
they would say if you don't do the stairs, like you're like,
basically the opposite. Like if you, if you just use
the, the lift, you're likely to consume X amount or more.
And the, the nutrition department, kind of because I,
because I did sport and exercisenutrition, it was, it was one of
my lecturers that wanted to kindof put it in place.
(07:35):
It was like public health nutrition was a module we did
and they set it all up, you know, so they put all the
infographs on the floor and everything.
Within one day they got complaints from students saying
the steps and the calories burned was triggering to the
students and it made them feel bad.
So all the overweight students felt bad that they were using
(07:55):
the lift and it was shaming themfor the using the lift and all
these things and he was fuming and so.
But my point being, it's very hard in today's society to do
that without someone. You know, no one's done it about
smoking. Yeah.
But when you kind of say, like, oh, if you do this, you're going
to be really, really overweight,it's like, well, all the
(08:16):
overweight people get upset and that kind of thing.
And it's. You're trying to navigate this
really weird. It's very easy.
To value, yeah. Yeah.
It's almost like, is it to do with the societal norms as well?
Like what is accepted now as a norm?
If you go against that, well then Oh no, that's offensive
because that's what we do. Whereas like smoking is not a
(08:37):
societal, that's what we do as anorm.
If they're more like that, the Iknow a lot of people still
smoke, but they're more of an outlier.
So you're OK to to put the outliers out.
But if it's more of a societal norm, then it's like, no, now
you're going against what we do in general.
I don't know this. What's funny as well is if you
look in a lot of European countries, it's like France is a
is a very, very common one, probably one of the lower
(09:01):
obesity rates in the in the world in terms of a country.
And they all smoke after dinner.They all they all still have
their coffee and their cigarettes on their on their
breaks. You go to Turkey, like went to
Turkey on vacation, Everyone smokes, everyone's skinny.
And so if you're, if you're kindof looking at it from a all
'cause mortality standpoint, they're probably living longer
than Americans. Yeah, they, we and the UK, you
(09:22):
know, we've massively shamed smoking, but we're all worse off
than than these guys, which I, Ido find interested.
And by no means am I condoning. It sounds like you're trying to
push it quite. Haven't you someone, someone's
going to be like, you know? Do you have an affiliate with
Marlboro Gold? Use my discount.
Like. The Marlboro Ben Marlboro 10 it.
(09:44):
Just goes to show though, and it's like there's so many
variables that come up play withthis yes you know, that's the
most important thing to note it's.
Just almost like if you are moresanitary, it's just another it's
another Ave. which by whereby we've created society that this
is now the normal of what we do.And then that comes with an
increased risk of these things like heart disease, type 2
diabetes as well. It's just, it's it's hard to
(10:07):
avoid for a lot of people because they're not even
thinking about if people aren't consciously going, I need to
reduce my sedentary time. But what happens is now we're
starting to get more aware of being more sedentary.
It's like, yeah, but I go to thegym and I go to the gym.
Front of what your hour a day, five days a week, which is quite
a lot of exercise time for a lotof people.
(10:28):
But the the negative consequences that come around
with sitting down for 10 plus hours a day, you can't undo
those by your one hour of exercise.
Now in saying that, that doesn'tmean Oh well, the gym's
pointless then because I sit down so much like, no, it
obviously has a there's other benefits to it as well.
But just because you do go to the gym, it doesn't mean that
(10:51):
that you're offset in the risk of all 'cause mortality from
that's that's been accumulated through your seat seating time.
I mean, I'm, I'm a really good example of that because I'll,
I'll train 2 hours a day, five days a week.
And there's some conditioning inthat as well.
So it's not like I'm just static.
Like I'm, I'm rowing, I'm doing a salt bike.
So my watch is probably clockingsome steps incidentally, from
(11:11):
doing that. Then I'll work like do a, do a,
do a day's work and it will be 9:00 PM and I've done 4000
steps. And in my head I'm like, I've,
I've gone, I've gone after it today for two hours.
But if I walked for two hours I'd be getting 1212 to 15,000
steps and would probably burn more calories from from doing
(11:32):
that than my, you know, hour and15 of weights and then 45
minutes of of conditioning. Definitely 100%.
It's always like they call it the sedentary athlete, isn't it?
And I think when you look at theresearch on these things like
they, they group people off and that's what they refer to as the
sedentary athletes. So they're basically when
they're comparing people who exercise but are sedentary and
people who don't exercise but aren't sedentary, that they're
(11:55):
neat, I guess throughout the dayif they are very active.
That's what they grew up as a sedentary athlete, which I would
yeah, I probably put myself because I do, I do have no, I'm
just thinking I might be I mightjust be sad the.
Only one of us is Ryan's not a sedentary athlete because you
know, you, your needs through the day, yeah, is huge.
And you train as well. But he's not the athlete, but he
(12:17):
belly. Trains anymore?
No. He's an active human.
Yeah. That's why I do that though, so
like I'll train like 2-3 times aweek so I got enough time to
walk a lot throughout the day. Obviously that is where you get
your biggest bang for buck with like increase in energy
expenditure, you know. Do you remember Ben a while back
I had that endurance athlete whowanted to drop weight and she
was actively gaining weight, youknow, because obviously you
(12:38):
would do like a 2 hour session, but then you're so tired you're
sitting down the rest of the body down.
Yeah. So over the course of the day
you're not burning as much as someone who's doing.
I know 30 minute waits and then walking 20,000 steps a day.
And this is where I, I remember I've bought.
So in my house, I've got a, I'vegot a seat sit in desk, but I've
got a, a platform that goes on it so I can stand.
(13:01):
And I, when I was hosting the power hour calls at the start,
you see, I was on my feet every time.
But then as my training was ramping up, I was like, I'm not
standing for this, like my legs.So I would put the, the, the,
the platform to one side and I would just sit down doing it.
And even though I knew I should because I, I was actively trying
to reduce my sit in time, but then again, when you do train
(13:22):
hard, your legs do get tired andyou, that drive to actually
stand up for the rest of the day.
It is hard because I'm, I'm trying to focus, I'm trying to
talk, I'm trying to work. I want to constantly start
thinking, Oh my, my legs are tired.
It's quite hard to actually get that job done.
So we, we, we touched on one of them, but I mean, this, this is
the most important part is how do people start being more
(13:43):
active through that day in a, ina practical and reasonable way?
Because say, again, this is no different than saying move more,
eat less doesn't help anyone. We know we need, we all know we
need to be more active. So what are some kind of tips
and tricks that we can give people?
And, and we mentioned the, The Walking pad, you know, and, and
I, I mean, we need an affiliate with because we have, we have so
(14:06):
many clients, because we have a lot of successful clients where
they're on meetings all day and they, they can't be on their
phone because they're presentingthings and they need to be on
Zoom. And so walking like desk
treadmills or walking pads have been a game changer.
Even for our coaches. You jump on our, our coach
meetings, half the team are walking on the meeting because
they know they're going to be infront of their computer doing
(14:28):
check insurance, reaching out toclients and they're not going to
be to get their steps in throughout throughout the day.
So they'll, they'll walk throughthroughout.
And it's, I mean, I've got 1 nowand it's even in the last week
my steps have gone from 6000 to like 14 and it's felt effortless
to do it. So when you speak about like
life extension and people who invest money in supplementation
(14:50):
or medical stuff, like really, really expensive, and when you
look at actually the, the potential extension that they
get, somebody's not even that much.
It's like, oh, this may help if you invest X amount of 1000
where it's like, oh, you can pick up a walking treadmill for
a couple of 100 bucks. And then when you look at the,
the data there of reducing that sedentary time by an hour, 2 to
(15:11):
3% every hour. So now you walk in four hours
instead of sitting for four hours.
That's a, a huge reduction for the return on investment that
that you're getting. So they're worth their weight in
gold. Like one of my one of my clients
who was very sedentary and then I know we work in body
composition more often than not from a fat loss standpoint, was
(15:34):
struggling to drop body weight because he was quite small as
well, but small, but overweight.And then his step counts for
like 3000 a day and he was up. I haven't got time.
I'm on meetings all the time. He got a, he got a walk in
treadmill. He was in 20,000 steps and and
it was like it's easy. It's E and the difference
between 3020 thousand. From what, 1 to 2 lbs of fat?
(15:55):
Oh my God. Without changing your diet.
Well, look, if I would just reeloff the things that I would, I
would like the risk of death from all 'cause mortality
obviously would plummet. His ability to drop body fat,
which in turn would help that isis going to increase 10 tenfold.
Then you've got even just think about like your lower back pain.
People who sit at a desk all dayon my back is so tight.
(16:18):
Your back is weak. It's not tight because it's just
like relaxed all day. Whereas when you're up on your
feet, your back is having to work just to keep yourself up.
So it's like all these things, all these benefits you're going
to get just by being on your feet.
It's again, and it costs about 200 bucks.
Yeah, it's it's worth his weightin gold.
I think another thing as well isthat because like if you, if you
(16:38):
are someone who's like working 8hours a day sitting down right,
then you go and say well you need to find an extra 2-3 hours
like to on top to get like 15,000 steps.
Like, God, where am I going to find that?
So one of the things I look at is like, how can without
spending any extra time, what can I do with my normal day
that's going to allow me to increase my expenditure?
So like, let's say if you work in an office, but you get the
lift up to the, the office everyday, can I take the stays?
(17:02):
Like one of the things that I'veBrian Pennuzzo was an ex client
of a superhuman. Like when he takes his kids to
like baseball or whatever, he'llwalk around the court.
Whereas what do you see most people do?
Sit in the car, sit on the side when you're at home watching TV,
if you've got a walking pad walk.
So you're not spending any extratime, You're basically killing
two birds to 1 stone. Yeah.
And looking for little pockets like that is really really good
(17:22):
and can add up all the time for sure.
Is there any, Is there any? I mean, I I think that's the
number. 1 #100% I would give. Is there any other kind of tips
that you would that you would give clients to to start being
more active? Well, the, again, when you look
at the the researchers out there, they generally say those
(17:43):
more prolonged sitting periods of like 30 minutes plus are
generally the worst. So if you think about it from
that standpoint, like you said, trying to accumulate a load of
1000 steps in one bout, it can seem like a lot.
And then it's from a motivation standpoint, people just don't do
it because like, Oh well, I can't afford to go get 8000
(18:03):
steps after work or before work.I haven't got the time.
Whereas if you. If you set a reminder in your
phone every 30 minutes to do a 10 minute bout whereby and
again, you can still work like how many people work on their
phone they need to check emails or how many people spend time
scrolling social media. It's like, Oh well, that you do
a 30 minute bout of hard work. Then you spend that alarm goes
(18:27):
off. You do a 10 minute bout of
whether you're going to do some more work on your phone, but you
just pacing around the house, walking around the kitchen.
So now you're reducing the frequent frequency of those
longer sedentary periods. But then if you were doing 10
minutes every hour during your 810 hour work day, you're now
going to accumulate a good amount of stamps.
(18:49):
So now at the end, I've only got2000 steps to catch up with.
It's so just setting those reminders to move a little bit
more frequently. Again, whether that is with a
against, some people might not have a step pad or even want to
get a step pad. They might not be in a a
position of work to use a step pad whilst working like there
are times where you like. Trying to read complex things
(19:11):
whilst walking is not always theeasiest, so again that might
suit them them better. Another thing I've got one to
add to that is which has been beneficial for clients is
looking at it is like a weekly average because no one works,
like very few people work seven days a week.
They may get the weekend off. So like they may only be able to
get, I don't know, let's say 5000 steps during the week, but
they may be able to accumulate 2025 steps on the weekend where
(19:32):
they may be sitting down. Now you can go for a hike.
So rather than looking at a daily at a daily target, you
could look at it as like a weekly target.
I. Think the other thing to just to
make everyone aware is you don'thave to go from zero to 100 yes,
if you're sitting 10 hours a dayright now, just going to 9 hours
is is going to be a benefit. I think people think they need
(19:53):
to go from they've been sat downall day, so now they're never
going to sit again. And by no means are we saying
that because I again, it's the. People can perceive it as like,
I'm never going to get 10,000 steps, say what you're doing
two, try for three. And if, when you can
consistently do three, try for four.
And it's going to be a, a very gradual transition over time.
We, I mean, that's like everything we do with clients.
(20:15):
We're never going to just go anddo a complete 180.
We try and just gradually changethings.
And then you look at like, you know, in a year's time and
you're doing 15,000 steps a day.And you used to do 2, but that
wasn't, you didn't go from 2 to 15.
You went from 2:00 to 3:00. And so it's just look at your
day and look where you can just add those little steps in, like
taking the stairs, park a bit further away from the store.
(20:37):
So you've got to walk. If there's any meetings that you
can go for a walk on, go for a walk on.
Obviously, if you if you can afford and want to do a walking
pad, then watch your favorite Netflix episode in in the
evening and walk whilst you do it.
Just, you know, one or two of those things and then just start
stacking them. And you'll be amazed at how fast
that that adds up. I think as well the going back
(21:01):
to the point where I said about breaking up that sedentary time,
like I feel like the the argument against that is people
like, but when I'm busy in work,it's going to break my
concentration if I'm constantly getting reminded to get up and
go walk. But actually when you look, and
I think Alex Hormozi was saying this, I believe it was him,
where he was on about like a productivity hack.
(21:21):
And it's like some people they try and work for 8 hours
straight or like a four hour block because it's such a long
period of time, there's only so much you can concentrate within
that time. And what you find is although
you've worked 4 hours, it's beenvery broken.
It's been very just like slow. Whereas like he's like, well, if
you work flat out for, for half hour or an hour and like there's
(21:42):
no phone, there's nothing. It's just my head's in the game
and I work and then I have a 10 minute break and then go again
and then have a 10 minute break.Then you'll get the
productivity. Over the course of the four,
eight hour period, you actually end up getting more done because
when you're in, you're fully in.And then when you're out, you
actually take a break and have that breathe where I was like if
you try and go for four hours straight, maybe the for the
(22:04):
first hour, half hour, you're very productive and then it
gradually titrates off throughout the.
Rest 1 foot in one foot. So it's like not only now you
reducing sedentary, sedentary time, you're being more healthy,
you're being more active, but you're also now more productive
in work as well. So it's again that's a when you
look at a a return on investmentstandpoint with his weight in
(22:25):
gold that doesn't cost. You a dime?
Yeah. So I think the, you know,
really, really to sum it up is start looking for those areas
where you can add add that activity.
Smoking isn't as bad as you think.
Crop that real for the Instagram.
(22:46):
Smoking is not that bad. No, I think, but again, it's,
it's just a really good comparison because it gets
people to just open their eyes more holistically to everything
that they're doing rather than just pigeonholing certain things
saying like, you know, drink, drinking is bad for you, smoking
is bad for you, these things arebad for you.
And it's like, well, this dose dependent and what else, what
(23:09):
else goes with it? When you drink, do you eat a
load of food when you smoke, do you walk 5 miles whilst you
smoke? And so it's you'll never be able
to know the full kind of the netgain or or loss because there's
so many things that go into it, which we'll we'll never be able
to kind of track in a study. But we do have the general
consensus that if you are more active than not, you are likely
(23:30):
going to live longer. And we can manipulate the
environment and set these thingsin place to enable you to be
more active without pulling awayfrom these other areas that
you're trying to address, like like work and so on.
Awesome. Thank you as always guys for for
tuning in. Be sure to like and subscribe on
YouTube, iTunes and Spotify and we'll see you next time.
If you love this show, please like, share and leave us a five
(23:52):
star review so that we can help more people.
I'm John Matson, reminding you to always go get what's yours.
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.