A Sedentary Lifestyle

Happy Sunday, LGH crew! Wow, I have a super-important topic for you today! SEDENTARY BEHAVIOR! Yaaaay! Yesterday I did my first unplugged day! It was AWESOME! To be fair, I wasn't completely unplugged, I had my cell phone and did look at facebook in the morning and at night. But my high-power gaming computer was turned off for all of November 5th. I did laundry, we cleaned our bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living room. I had some friends over, we made cookies out of a recipe I found in a real-live recipe book! Gasp! Tarver and I went to Target then I made dinner while Tarver got caught up on some reading. Then me and Andy went to visit Mal and we spent my only time on the internet all day-- watching Whose Line is it Anyway? On YouTube.

HOW is this show not on anymore?
This isn't even a funny caption. I just want this show to come back.

Yesterday there were some times I just wanted to sit down at my computer and veg out. But I found things to do. More importantly, I was on my feet most of the day, I created something (yes, cookies, you all know I'm not cutting anything out.), and spent time with a lot of people I love. Was it hard for me? Yeah, actually. Probably for other people not turning on their computer for 24 hours isn't such a big deal, but for me, it really is.

Shh! Blog! I'm not addicted! I can stop whenever I wanna!

 I'm sedentary pretty much 100 percent of the time. My desk chair and my butt are super-good friends. You can usually find me and my desk chair, working on my ridiculous thesis, this blog, creeping on facebook or watching hulu. In the continuing painfully honest and somewhat embarrassing spirit of this blog, I spend way more time on the internet than most Americans do in front of the television. Furthermore, every moment I'm in front of my beautiful wide-screen Asus monitor, I am completely sedentary, complacent, and zombified. Doctors everywhere say sedentary behavior is like one of the worst things evar (yeah, they said it like that too, isn't that how doctors talk?).

OmGz u HaV LiEk tEh BeSt BlOoD pReShUr EvAr!

In real life, sedentary behavior causes all kinds of bad things.  But for me, it really just gets in the way of doing other things. Being sedentary at my computer means I'm not up doing laundry, cleaning my house, trying out a new recipe or getting any exercise. I am sitting on my butt allowing the world to pass me by. Sometime I have to reach up and click my mouse, but mostly I am perfectly still, and yes, for HOURS at a time. It's not unusual for me to get home from work or school and sit down at my computer until I go to bed. Considering the calories you burn sleeping are greater than watching TV or internet surfing, I am really doing a number on myself. If I have dedicated my Saturday to watching every episode of Firefly for the 45th time, I am almost literally putting my body in backslide (backside?) mode.

Not that any time spent watching Firefly is a waste. It's just not good for my butt.

On top of not getting any physical exercise, besides writing my thesis and this blog, my brain does NOT get a lot of exercise on the internet. We own about a bazillion books, and every hour I'm on the internet, I'm not stretching my brain with new ideas, gaining insight into other ways of life, or creating meaningful connections with other readers. Here's another confession: You know how little kids watch things over and over and over and over and never get sick of them? Yeah. I never grew out of that. So most of my time on the internet is dedicated to watching the same shows or looking at the same websites for the billionth time.

Literally, I can go on the internet, pick an episode, and I might legitimately watch it three times. This leads to weird talents, such as, If I tell you a South Park reference, I'm also going to give you the season, episode number and full official title of the episode. And there's MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED episodes of South Park. Now, I have a very good memory for those kind of things. I'm pretty sure my little brother and I could sit down and recite all of Ferris Beuller's Day Off to you without missing a beat.

Even the actors are judging me for knowing all the words to this movie.

But in NO WAY does that mean it's good for my brain! I'm not sure why I have these repetitive behaviors (I don't have any other Spectrum-y symptoms, so it's not that) but it's really not a good thing-- because where most people will just watch a show-- I usually watch it twice, or more if I like it. I've seen the awful movie Center Stage more than 50 times. I've read the fifth Harry Potter book more than 20 times. I just found out about the Hunger Games series and I've read Catching Fire at least 9 times. This is kind of getting off on a tangent, but the point is, I have some more habits to break.

It's not that simple, Sign! Ugh, you can be so insensitive! 

The final bad thing about being sedentary is that while I'm watching that same episode of SNL for the second time in a day, I'm not keeping up with the laundry. I'm not working on a new recipe. I'm not working on my thesis and I'm not moving. I'm complacent. I can sit in a total mess and browse 9gag.com for hours and hours, even though most of it makes me angry. It doesn't seem to matter, as long as I'm totally sedentary. I've wasted entire weekends sitting on my computer.

So yesterday, I had my first experiment of unplugging and I think it went really well :) This is part of moving more and eating less. Being more social, creative, and thoughtful are all results of not being plugged into my computer alllll the time. So it's going to be just another piece to the puzzle for me.

I should look up where that puzzle piece went on the internet... 

Over the past few days I've talked to a lot of people who told me they read my blog-- how do I not know this? This page has almost 2000 views at time of writing.  I just want to let you all who aren't commenting know, for those of you who aren't as sedentary and internet-based as I am, there's a vocabulary word for people who read blogs or forums but never comment-- they're "LURKERS"! So at least let me know that you're here! Do you sense my desperation?

This was absolutely the nicest, cutest lurker picture I could find. The other ones look  like zombies.

So De-Lurk yourself right now and leave a comment!