Increased Hunger, Decreased Calorie Burn You already know that prolonged sitting affects your body and sends your system out of balance. But did you know that moving less can actually cause you to feel hungrier? This seems counterintuitive. Sitting decreases calorie burn, and causes you to use less energy. So why would sitting all day at work make you hungrier? It has to do with your hormones. Leptin and ghrelin are two hormones that regulate your appetite. When you sit all day, these hormones can go off-kilter, telling your body that you need food when you really don’t. A 3 PM trip to the vending machine may be a result of too much sitting throughout the day. And because your hormones are off-balance, your afternoon snack can actually be less satisfying because your hormones are not telling your brain that you are full. What’s worse, a gene critical for controlling blood clots and inflammation switches off after periods of prolonged sitting, causing your good cholesterol to drop. Over time, this can lead up to serious metabolic consequences, increasing the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. So, if we move less we might actually eat more, but we feel less full, and we use less energy to burn off the increased calorie intake. Try standing and moving more throughout the workday and let us know how it affects your energy level.
