Avoid Weight Gain at Work

Lose that extra poundage you got at work! Dieting alone will not make your love handles go away. Learn how to make realistic choices involving daily activity, food and friends to get rid of the bulge.

It is the common plight of office workers – extra poundage! More jobs are getting more convenient, which often equates to a sedentary lifestyle. How do we prevent the bulge from taking over our wardrobe, our activities, and our relationships? Here’s a food, activity and relationship guide to getting rid of the bulge.

Don’t Skip Breakfast. This is the most important meal. It’s where you pull your energy from for the rest of the day. A heavy lunch will make you sluggish in the afternoon and a heavy dinner is guaranteed to be the bulge of the next couple of months. Eat a hearty, healthy breakfast of fruits (fiber), and some carbs like bread or oatmeal (carbs are your source of energy).

Avoid Processed Food. These include canned and preserved stuff. These have been linked to high blood pressure (too much salt in it too) and worse, to Cancer. Try to eat organic as much as you can, but be wary of the pesticides that the farmers might have sprayed your lettuce.

Don’t eat because you’re bored. Work in some industries can be boring at times; some of us actually turn to food to get past it. While potato chips are tasty, they’re also salty. Salt makes you retain water. Edema, the term for holding too much water in your body, can predispose you to high blood pressure.

There is a never-ending debate whether or not salt is good or bad. But surely the moderate amount is the right amount of salt.

Diet right. If you absolutely need to diet for a cocktail next week, then by all the means, diet! Just do it right. Do not starve yourself. Once famished, you can turn the canapé table over, and gulp tons of margaritas, which can by the way hold up to 4oo calories in one glass. Nutritionists say it is best to eat something every two hours, in small portions, of course.

Stretch. Being limber is one of the greatest feelings stretching can do. You lose your muscle knots and you lose the tension on your back.

Get moving! Garfield said about activity, “The mind is willing, but the flesh is fat.” Ever felt too sluggish to move around? If you need a little coffee to perk you up, then drink some coffee. Put on some house music too if that will get you up to do a little stretching. Try to include it in your routine when you wake up. You’ll notice you feel more active the rest of the day.

Get a treadmill. You wouldn’t want a rainy day to ruin your jogging mornings, would you? Getting a treadmill cements your resolve to be active, bad weather or not. Make sure to put it right on your living so you don't forget to do your daily clicks.

Pull your peers in. It is easier to start a regimen if you got social back up. That is one of the reasons you would want them in on it. You will need encouragement once you start feeling deprived.

Second reason is they’re probably running into the same bulge problem like you. You could benefit from each other by throwing in ideas to cooking healthy recipes, by working out together and by looking out for each other’s diet.