Cannot create a table variable with a discontiguous index

I am trying to create new columns based on a condition as described in the code below:

for j = 1:length(data.var1) 
    column = 1;
    while data.var1(j) > value0
        data{column,j} = value1;
        column = column + 1;
    end
end

I then get this error message:

"Cannot create a table variable with a discontiguous index."

Has anyone come up with a solution for such kind of isses with Matlab tables? I would like to avoid creating the columns at the same time with the table.