Field to office 85 - 107kg. Advice?

cpstansburyuk

Hi there,
I am a 37 year old business analyst who, since joining an office team and leaving a field team has put gone from 85kg to 107kg in two years.

The office lifestyle has definitely taken its toll. Lunch time meetings, quick pint after work, Nandos Fridays etc have all led me to develop what my wife calls the perfect Dad bod.

I started to work on my weight in November 2019 starting at 107.7kg. I am now at 104.4 and want to get back to late 80's if possible. I find reading all the stories of success great as it just proves it can be done but I wondered if there are any people on here on a similar journey? I don't want to go the other way and go from Dad bod to muscle man however I do want to be able to do my shirts up in the middle!.

Feel free to add me and offer any advice on how to tackle the office!

hipari

Congrats on what you have already lost!

I also work in an office, and here’s some of the office-related tricks I have successfully used in addition to good old logging my food and hitting the gym after work:
- my office is in 9th floor, and I try to walk the stairs every day when I come to work and when I go back after lunch. It took a while to build my stamina, I started by going to 4th floor and taking the elevator up from there.
- We go out to eat lunch every day with my colleagues, and I teamed up with a new year’s resolutioner colleague to create a swing vote in choosing salad places for lunch
- It’s OK to drink water in company events or when you go out for an after-work pint with work buddies. It’s the social part and not the beer that’s the point of why you go, right? This might even be easier for you and your male-assumed dad bod than me, a 28-year-old recently married female whose non-alcoholic beverage choices sometimes cause pregnancy gossip

There are also ways of changing the office to a healthier place on a larger scale, and while your job as a business analyst sounds like you might not get to make direct decisions, most companies want to have healthy workers as sickness and obesity carry huge costs even in the workplace. I control finance, HR and the office in my role (yes, it’s too much and I’m hiring an assistant) so I get to make these decisions as I see fit, but here are some ideas of what we have done that you could suggest at your workplace as a health initiative.
- adjustable desks so you can use it either as a standing or sitting desk and change freely during the day. My company moved to a new office in October and we needed all new office furniture, so I didn’t even give anyone the option, I just replaced all desks with electric adjustable desks. Everybody loves them, and nobody has to adjust if they don’t want to.
- Core-activating desk chairs - same thing, I just got a bunch of different core-activating stools and chairs in addition to regular office chairs
- Fitness equipment so people can take an exercise break - I got a foam roller, a gym stick, an exercise band and a balance pad to the office and I see people using them frequently
- Change the way your company does staff events: I try to include some sort of physical activity in every event, and in the past year we have gone kayaking, gaming in a virtual reality arcade (very physical stuff, everyone was sore for days), archery and axe-throwing. I live in Finland where drinking has been a culturally big issue, so I pushed through a policy that bans company events where drinking is the main activity, so every company-organized event has to have a proper non-drinking activity. Doesn’t have to be physical every time, but having something other than drinking to do helps in making healthy decisions. There’s still drinking involved in most evening events, but it’s easier to make smart choices when the focus is on something else.
- The aforementioned stairs: as mentioned, our office is in 9th floor, and we have a company-wide stair challenge going on. We got a physical button that you can push every time you take the stairs, and the button is connected to an ipad that shows how many times it was pushed. If we reach a goal we set together, the company pays for a pre-decided award. Our current goal is to do the stairs 500 times during the first quarter.
- We have a fruit basket set up in the kitchen that the company pays for, and everybody is free to take a snack whenever they feel like.
- In Finland employers are allowed to give out culture and fitness benefits on top of salaries as they see fit, and up to 400€ per year it’s tax free for both the employer and the employee. We encourage employees to use it on fitness, and I know most people use it on things like gym memberships, group class fees etc. I don’t know if UK (guessing from the Nandos comment) has a similar system, but maybe your company could pay for gym memberships or, if your office is big enough, build a small gym in your office building? At least here some gyms also offer company deals where they give discounts to employees of nearby offices if they have a deal with the gym, could that be an option for your workplace?
- Our office building has facilities to encourage an active commute: there’s a bicycle parking space, showers and changing rooms in the basement and everyone who wants it gets a locker to keep cycling or running gear there during the office day. What we don’t have is parking spots for cars.

AnnPT77

If I do the arithmetic right (as I don't always ), 22kg in 2 years would imply that you've averaged about 233 calories daily in excess of maintenance calories. Figure out a way to combine lower calorie eating with more movement (daily life stuff like hipari mentioned, or exercise) to knock off that 233, and subtract another 233, and you'll be back at 85kg in another 2 years.

That's super-rough math, but the main point is that biggish gains come from pretty small changes, like the equivalent of a Snickers bar daily. Small-seeming manageable, sustainable changes can take you back in the other direction. That's true even if you don't want the loss to take 2 years.

Too many people think they ought to revolutionize their lives to lose weight, cut calories punitively low, eat things they think are "diet foods" or "superfoods" or "metabolism boosters" that they don't enjoy; isolate themselves from friends because of "bad foods"; embark on a miserable overwrought over-hyped exercise program 7 days a week; and just generally act like they need to suffer in expiation for the sin (!?) of weight gain.

None of that is necessary. And it's likely to be unsustainable quite soon, so they fail.

Slow and steady yields better results than repeated but interrupted bouts of extreme dieting, and as a bonus, isn't miserable along the way.

You're on a losing track: That's great. Keep it moderate, and keep going. Add some movement to your office day (stairs, active breaks, etc.). Figure out some reasonable food/drink choices at places the crew likes to go for lunch or after work, and pick those choices when you go. (You may take some teasing at first, but if you take it calmly, they'll lose interest.) Add a little exercise, if you have time for it. It needn't be fancy or gym-based: Walk with the fam or dog, active play with kids more often, take up more active hobbies like carpentry or gardening, go out dancing.

You'll get there. Best wishes!

88olds

Agreeing with @AnnPT77. I’ve lost 100+lbs. But in the end, it took me about as long to lose it as it did to gain it.

Something that helped me at the office was I became a germaphobe. One day I took a close look at the behavior of my coworkers around the food that was out. Once was enough.