Tips for losing weight when you work in an office 730am - 5pm

Jenfromtheblock84

I work 6am-2pm daily with a 2 and 3 year old at home. I had to start getting up earlier to go to the gym as when I get home I'm stuck there for the night. So I'm up at 4am and at Planet fitness 3 days out of the week and work out all weekend. If this isn't an option for you can always try to keep healthy snacks at your desk. Meal plan your breakfast and lunches and either work out at home or during your breaks. Best of luck but remember where there is a will there is a way!

French_Peasant

My "babies" are now 6 and 9, and this past summer I decided it is DEFINITELY time to get my butt in gear. I've lost 25 lbs of baby fat since midsummer and have another 15 to go. I work full-time in an office, and know how difficult it can be to fit in exercise. But keep in mind, as you face the stressful office environment, you need some mechanisms to de-stress in order to cope and ultimately be a more effective worker (with less impact on the business health care plan, which makes you more valuable in another way). I work in a 7-story building, and one of the most effective things I have found for a "quick burn" is just to walk up and down the stairs for 10 -15 minutes on a break to clear my head. Most people are using the elevators and escalators, so I don't get too many odd looks in the stairwell. Depending on your weight, this is roughly 100 calories per 10 minutes. I also try to get in a half an hour walk outside on warm days; this is about 110 calories for me. Each of these is great for offsetting that chocolate, which is also a healthy treat if you are eating dark chocolate with a high cacao %. As many posters point out, walking or doing stairs while carrying a 2-year-old are significant workouts in themselves, and you get to cuddle instead of dumping your baby off at the gym after being separated all day. Another great workout is riding your bike while pulling a baby trailer. Good luck with whatever approach you take!

joycejentges

I work 8 am - 7 pm or later. Very sedentary job, so I have having issues figuring out when/how to work in some exercise. I'm tough to get out of bed earlier in the morning, but I'm trying to get up earlier. Any suggestions are great.

joycejentges

I also wear a Garmin VivoFit and have trouble getting over 5000 steps a day. If it's quiet at night or weekends, I do laps around the waiting room and 2 hallways, but I can't stray too far from my desk or phone.

Triplestep

OP, I feel you - for many years I had this schedule, brought work home, took lunch at my desk, etc. If you work in a service-based job, the expectations and competing priorities can make even taking a bathroom break hard to manage.

Do you take conference calls? My office relies heavily on them as we are scattered around in different locations. Sometimes we get take them on our cell phones and walk while on the call.

Can you get up any earlier than you do now? There are 10 minute workouts on youtube; maybe start with a 10 minute workout, then see if you can add more. (In your shoes, I'd collapse after my child was in bed, but waking up earlier might be an option.)

emmycantbemeeko

If you predictably crave something sweet every afternoon, don't restrict yourself from having that- portion it in to your calories. Planning an all-salad-and-chicken-all-the-time diet is all well and good, but if you wind up going over your allotment by eating a candy bar every day, at some point you have to say "okay, I know I'm going to eat 200 calories of chocolate every day at 3:30, I need to trim 200 calories elsewhere to account for it or I will never lose this weight."

Likewise exercise- which is helpful but not mandatory for weight loss- if you can't reliably go to a gym or bring yourself to get up half an hour earlier (and I empathize, because there is no force in the world that will make me an early-morning exerciser), and you want to exercise, you need to figure out some way to incorporate it realistically in to your day. Take a walk around the block with your kiddo when you get home, climb the stairs ten times, park at the farthest end of every parking lot- walking is a much better exercise than most people give it credit for, and if all you're looking to do is up your calorie burn to increase your deficit, not create a chiseled physique, increasing your daily number of steps will do that just as well as fitting in a formal workout.

chuckrwinters

Addressing the weight loss, for me it was just consistency. Most important was to keep healthy snacks on hand at work. Almonds, peanut butter, cottage cheese, fruit, and cheeses. Helps keep me away from the snack machine.

For getting through the 3:30 crash, I found a few things which helped me out.
1) Eating every 2-3 hours. That kept my body running consistently through the day. Lunch was about the same size as the in between snacks.
2) Increasing the protein and fat intake during the lunch. Someone suggested it, and it seemed to help.
3) Be sure you are getting enough potassium. I found when I increased my potassium before the mid day crash that I felt much better throughout the afternoon.

Chu k

bellabonbons

Go to the gym when you get off of work. Or go before work. Lots of nice Gyms have great dressing areas and you can easily take your change of clothes and be ready to start the day or after work is great.