Rise by five. Write. Ride by nine for four hours (three if bad weather keeps me inside). Eat lunch, shower, shave. Pack the car with five days' worth of food and laundry.

Say goodbye to dad, drive for an hour, unpack. Eat a snack. Keep unpacking. Start making the food I'll eat throughout the week.Eat supper. Wash dishes. Keep making food. Realize there's an odd job or two and some school work that should get done before bedtime.Dream about finally sitting down, sipping some decaffeinated green tea, and reading the newspaper.Welcome to my typical Sunday in the winter. If you see it as something other than the typical "day of rest" you're probably right. If you think it ends without much of a dream, the dream of finally getting off my feet, however, you may be wrong at least according to one theory on what is causing the obesity epidemic.But that theory suggests that what I (and too many other people, obviously) believe is a dream is a specific type of one called a nightmare.Here's why. Many people who are presently overweight don't want to be and have taken the typical steps to remedy the situation. They start eating better. They start exercising more.Yet the pounds just don't come off.This phenomenon has caused researchers to work overtime and two interesting theories have emerged as a result.One believes that good gut bacteria helps burn fat and increases basal metabolic rate, but that bad gut bacteria does not. Research published last October in the journal Cell showed that jet lag in human subjects increased the bad gut bacteria that has been linked to obesity in other studies.When jet lag was simulated in laboratory rats, not only did the bad gut bacteria increase, but also actual weight gain occurred.While you may not feel jet-lag research is applicable to you, researchers believe the findings are significant because being sleep deprived something too many Americans are and having erratic sleep patterns because of schooling or shift work have been found to produce the same bad gut bacteria.The second theory about the increase in obesity was illustrated to some degree by its opposite in the intro. The modern lifestyle has eradicated much of the non-exercise body movements that we used to do throughout the typical day.More and more people move less and less during the work day, spending more and more time working at a computer or talking on a phone. What definitely has been reduced is the time we spend standing on our feet.While it may not seem like much more of an effort, research shows that you burn 13 percent more calories when standing still as opposed to sitting still. If you're a fidgeter, interestingly enough, you expend 94 percent more calories when compared to a non-fidgeter sitting.Take a fast walk during your work day, and for that time you're burning 202 percent more calories than they guy in the cubical passively watching a screen.According to research cited by Monica Mollica writing about this phenomenon on Will Brink's website, changes in the amount non-exercise body movement Americans do have caused a reduction of up to 500 calories per day.Yet the reduction of non-exercise body movement impacts more than energy demand. For as mentioned before, while it may not seem to be much of a difference in effort, your body reacts to standing upright much differently than sitting.According to research Mollica cites, engaging the muscles needed to keep the body upright stimulates muscle lipoprotein lipase, an enzyme that when circulating in your bloodstream allows fat to be broken down and used as energy. This may be why one study found that for every two-hour-per-day television viewing increase, the chance of getting diabetes increases by 14 percent and the likelihood of becoming obese increases by 23 percent.Conversely, for every two-hour-increase-per day in what could be described as non-exercise body movement things like standing upright and walking around the house the risk of diabetes drops by 12 percent and the chance of becoming obese drops by 9 percent.So how can you apply this research to help you in the battle of the bulge? Take steps literally and figuratively to get more non-exercise movement in your work day.Get up, take a walk, and talk to that coworker down the hall instead of dashing off an email. And if that sort of behavior is frowned upon at your place of business, you can at least stand up from time to time.Do your best to avoid long, interrupted blocks of sitting time. If you need to be at your computer all day, stand and stretch every 45 minutes or so.Not only should the practice improve your productivity, but it should also help your body. One study found the frequency of these sorts of breaks correlated positively with waist size.In other words, those who stood up during the day weren't quite as wide around the middle.