keeping weight off when no longer doing physical job?

brenn24179

My hubby and I were discussing why it is so much harder for him to lose weight than it has been for me. We are both eating about the same. He use to work in a furniture plant and at a grocery store and now on the bus where he sits all the time. He use to could eat whatever he wanted and stay slim. It is like he cannot lose weight especially this winter unless he works physically like he has all his life, anyone else like this?

I have done sat down office jobs all my life so it is the same for me. I guess if I had worked physical and stopped it would be a lot harder. Anyone relate?

tinkerbellang83

If work has changed then his NEAT has changed. When you're on your feet all day you're burning more calories than sitting down all day. It's not harder to lose weight, you just have to adjust your eating patterns to your level of activity.

This is why MFP asks for your activity level when calculating your calorie goal.

Sedentary (Desk Job, etc) is BMR x 1.25
Lightly Active (Job with some time spent on feet) is BMR x 1.4
Active (Job mostly on feet) is BMR x 1.6
Very Active (Physically Demanding Job) is BMR x 1.75

So let's say you have a 6'0" 180lb man (BMR 1715) who was previously doing the same jobs as your husband. Whilst he was doing the furniture plant and grocery store, he was likely burning around 2400-2745 calories per day without any additional exercise and eating at maintenance.

If that same man changes to a job as a bus driver, then his calorie burn without any exercise is going to drop to around 2145, if he doesn't change his eating patterns accordingly and is still eating at the maintenance for his previous job, then the weight is going to slowly creep on at about half a pound per week (1lb of fat is equivalent to around 3500 calories).

Make sense?

brenn24179

wow tinkerbellang, you explained that great! glad it is not me. I was not use to physical work like him. I did work at food lion grocery for a while and came home exhausted and probably would have lost 1/2 lb a week also but it stressed me out so much working that hard (hardest job I ever did in a grocery store) gave me anxiety and I am an emotional eater so I gained weight, not lost it. Yes, everyones personality is different. My husband could never emotional eat, he cant eat at all if something bothers him, for me it is like bring on the pizza to soothe me. Very interesting. I also appreciated the office job I had all those years, those poor girls work hard for little money in retail!

HoneyBadger302

I put on my weight when I changed jobs as well. Most of my life if I was creeping up a few pounds, I'd just cut back on the fast food. Got one sitting job, followed by a full on desk job, followed by more desk jobs. Weight went up and wouldn't come back down.

What happened was that my daily burn had been reduced so significantly that, while my appetite was used to X, my actual burn was Y, and two simply didn't align. What I used to be able to "safely" eat in one sitting was now a full days worth of calories - and then some sometimes!

Had to learn to weigh my food, and have accurate measurements, and realize what an actual portion looked like.

I've also worked to generally increase my daily activity, adding more walking instead of driving, etc when and where I can (even when I would rather not). This hasn't made a huge difference in my loss, but makes it a little easier as I get a more to eat while maintaining the same loss rate.

I've accepted a slower loss overall, as it makes it a lot more manageable, but still have to check myself from time to time when I let things start to creep back in.

kshama2001

Ya, I have gained weight after changing to a sedentary job as well. I get exercise at lunch time and try to get some more after dinner, but it sure was easier when I had an active job.

I still want to eat the amount I did when I had an active job, which is probably what is going on with your hubby as well - if he learns how to retrain his brain first, let me know how he did it!