There are many jobs that are physical and thus aid in losing fat. Take farming or construction. These are obvious as they are constantly moving and as we should now know, movement is fat loss. A nurse is always on the go, as is even a fast food worker in a somewhat ironic twist. But what if you work in an office? How can you make your job work for you with regards to fat loss?
There are obvious things you can do like walk the stairs if you’re on multiple levels. Walking to and from work if you’re close enough. But what if you’re on a single level or have to drive to get to work?
I bet you’d be surprised by how much movement you do in a day sitting at your desk. Remember, we’re not just tracking steps, we’re wanting to track movement. So how much movement can you do at a desk? Well, think about how much movement you’re doing when you type at your keyboard. Think about how much movement your wrist and arm does moving the mouse around. This is stuff not normally tracked by pedometers but devices like Apple Watch do. I’m not trying to sell you on the Apple Watch but any device that tracks ALL movements you make is much better because it can really motivate you.
For instance, typing that last paragraph burnt 45 Kilojoules. This sentence added another 10 Kj. If you’ve read any of my other posts you should be starting to get it into your head that movement is fat loss. In any one day you could burn off 1000 Kj just by typing all day.
However, here’s where it gets tricky. The movements you are doing are a lot, but they aren’t strenuous, so you need to temper that movement by not eating as much food because even though you’ve burnt off 1000 Kj, you haven’t really burnt that of as lots of fat.
Another way to get exercise in the office is to change your desk to a standing desk. Yes I know, those who use standing desks tend to be over zealous tedious people but think of how much muscle power you require to stand at your desk. To stand for 8 hours you need to move your feet for a bit to get blood flow back into them. That’s movement and as such movement is fat loss. We need to get this into our heads if we’re going to motivate ourselves better. At some stage though you are going to need to sit down so make sure you’ve got a comfortable stool to help.
Then there is lunchtime. Before eating just go for a walk instead of sitting at your desk to eat. Here in New Plymouth we have around 100 KMs of walkways and around the CBD there’s the Coastal Walkway where you can walk alongside the sea. It’s beautiful and easy and the sea air will refresh you. I’m sure where you live you’ve at least got a city block you could walk around. Hell, just walk around the central area of your offices with a piece of paper. No one’s going to question you because you’ve got a piece of paper and therefore look busy but you’ll be getting a good deal of exercise doing it.
Even just pacing in your office is a good amount of movement. It helps you think and so you become even more productive.
Now for the caveat. I’m in no way saying all of this is going to beat going for long walks or going to the gym. What I’m trying to get you to see is that all of this is getting you moving and movement is fat loss. You can’t really do anything about how your job operates, but you can be smarter than just sitting at your desk all of the time.
If our goal is to eat less and move more then there are a million ways to move more. But get a smart watch like the Apple Watch that records movements not just steps. It’s imperative because otherwise there’s a lot of movement that you do that doesn’t get recorded. I’m now at 64 Kj at this point and I’m sitting on the pooper. It doesn’t sound like a lot but remember I’m sitting and typing and I’ve burned off almost 100Kj doing so.
All I then need to do is more exercise later on going for a walk. Although, I have to admit that as a postie I do get a lot of exercise in moving my motorcycle and delivering letters. In fact I’m doing more exercise riding a motorcycle than my wife is doing moving her body as a window washer.
And this is the point of this post. Movement is fat loss so we need to move more. Movement is anything that requires us moving our body. But get this, around 6000 Kj per day is required for our bodies to do nothing but exist. The vast majority of the Kilojoules / calories we ingest goes towards simply keeping us alive. Every bit of movement above and beyond that is icing on the cake so long as we don’t over consume with our food.
My goal on this journey is simply to eat less and move more. On Monday I will show you 2 months of data that will act as my control data. I’ll give you a little spoiler, it will be encouraging to all of you who might be starting this journey along with me. If so I will say welcome along and you’re doing better than you think you are.
You can do this even if you think your circumstances don’t allow it. They can and you can.