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Getting Back Into Shape While At The Office?
rhuntley12 writes "Personally, I sit at a computer desk for 10 hours a day with very little actual work. I've also started to get a little belly and out of shape. I know it's real bad in my office, especially with all the beer I consume. What do you do to stay in shape? Any secrets? Recently I've started to do sit ups, push ups, and running up and down the stairs. I get a lot of odd looks, and would prefer something that doesn't make the whole office stare at me.
I've looked through some websites with equipment, but it's all serious equipment I can't/won't lug into work. Any suggestions?"
Eureka! I've got it.
We can switch lives. I bike everywhere, including to work, so exercise is omnipresent. How about I take your job drinking beer ten hours a day, and you get some exercise. To keep it fair we can split our pay evenly. You can even fuck my girlfriend sometimes (again, good exercise).
Now, does your workplace have taps, or is it all bottled beer? Domestic or imported? Is there a good bitter or porter there? I must know these things before we continue.
You're welcome.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Eat less, Shit more
Simple. Get up and walk around. Contrary to all the paid ads on tv... just burning calories will take weight off. You don't have to target yer stomach if you wanna lose a gut. Targeting exersize is for building/toning muscle groups.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
if you drink pop all day, all of the sugar accumulates. try drinking water instead. you should lose a couple pounds after a week or two.
there is no secret to losing weight.
you have to burn more calories than you take in.
so either take in less calories (stop drinking all the beer) or burn more (run).
I run in the mornings and am working my way back up to 70 miles a week.
I'm in shape.
funny how those go hand in hand.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I think it would benefit you not just physically, but also emotionally if you made your body available to the Open Source developer community. Their social integrity, hard work, and yoga expertise would enable to reach those goals you've had since Thanksgiving '96.
It is vital that developers allow the Open Source developer community to dictate their diet, physical exercise regiment, and holistics. Their experience will allow to gain a physique similar to Atlas, Ferrigno, or a trim body like Woody Allen.
Only when we realize the perverse writings of Suzanne Sommers are misguiding the children of our generation, can we free the stranglehold that Starbucks has on society.
Which is nice.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
First, let me preface this by saying that I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.
I started to worry a bit more about my health when I hit 30 a few short months ago. I've been blessed with a decent matabilism, but even a good burn rate can't help you when you sit on the ass 12 hours a day between home/work/stuff.
So here are my own tips that have kept me pretty good so far:
Eating Habits
Eat more meals a day, smaller amounts. Between 4 and 6 is good. Instead of taking that lunch break and loading up on tons of stuff that just leaves you sluggish, keep some food at your desk. And try to keep it to good stuff. A veggie platter is good with ranch dressing or something like that, maybe even a meat tray with mustards, I like sardines in mustard/tomato sauce with saltines off and on (which is why my coworkers are glad I have my own office).
My personal adage for food is that it's better to eat a bit of something that tastes good, rather than a lot of something that tastes bad. Fats and oils are not the pure enemy - as long as you do it in moderation. I think Jon what's-his-name from Good Eats had a good point back in a slashdot interview when me mentioned people don't eat fats, then they get hungry later. Good point. So veggies good, dressing with veggies good, meat good - don't just have junk food.
And I'm sorry - but loose the beer. I don't drink it myself, but that's because I think it tastes like shit. At least cut down, go lite beer - whatever. It's a lot of calories you don't need.
Exercise
Again, I have my own office, so about the chime of every hour I'll stop, do some pushups/situps, and go back. Not a lot, but just enough to get the heart pumping a bit. After work, I am again blessed to have a gym right on the campus I work at, so I can hit the treadmill for 30 minutes before I grab my stuff and go home.
If you can't do that, then do what I did at my last job - squeeze it in. Park at the farthest point you can so you have to walk into/out of work. If there's public transportation you can use, do that - if you have to drive all the way in, then park far. Believe it or not, but my last job I parked about a good block oway.
When you go to lunch, don't drive there, walk to it. You know that Jared guy? I don't think he got thin off of the Subways, it was the fact he walked back and forth from the Subway to work every day. Never, never, never use the elevator or escalators - always the stairs. Make less phone calls to co-workers if you can - get up, go walk to them.
Now, I know some people will say "But - I'm a telemarketer/I can't get up/some other excuse". Bullshit. There's always something you can do.
You don't have to change your whole lifestyle, but if your health is important and you want to be more when you're in your retirement than a rotting bag of bones, you have to make the time now. And it's not much - studies I've seen show 30 minutes a day is the rule, but it doesn't always have to be consecutive. A few minutes going up the stairs to a meeting, a little bit walking down the block to your car, maybe you buy an Eyetoy (I had a reader who loved hers - the boxing/kung fu games alone should get a good sweat) and play with that, or a Dance Dance Revolution pad for parties. And I will kill for a set of the official Sambe De Amigo maracas - not the cheap ass rip offs. Whatever.
I'm no Richard Simmons (I like women too much), and I'm no Arnold, but I've been able to stay fit enough for wild monkey sex with my wife. I could probably even cut out the treadmill if my family was down here with me just running after my son when he steals my Gameboy Advance SP.
Anyway, that's my take. These may not work for you, and I'm no expert, but hopefully these help.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Something I discovered is replacing soda (or in your case beer), with bottled water. It's just as convenient, and is more filling and actually serves a purpose.
Also, a high water intake (just as long as you don't start killing off your kidneys) will help to detox you a bit, always nice in cubeville.
One way I found to keep at least a marginal amount of excercise while I sit and work is to sit on a ball instead of a chair.
Have a look for example here (i'm in no way associated with these folks....)
It helps improve your balance, strengthens your back/stomach muscles and does a great job of preventing Repetative Strain Injury. You really notice the difference after you used it for a while and than go back to a normal chair. It feels all stiff and uncomfortable...
I've enjoyed it for more than two years now. I got some weird looks in the begining, but now there are a number of people in the office using them too. Hope it helps.
Complexity is a measure of our ignorance...
No, the fat in your ass makes it look big. ;) (C'mon, hasn't every guy wanted to say that to his GF when she asks that question?)
Michael Loves Me!
sounds harsh, but it works. It's all in the mind. The natural reflex of a human is to eat when yuo're hungry. Fight that reflex in 2 ways :
1. Don't stuff yourself when you're hungry. Eat a little. And eat stuff that contains fewer calories, like fruit or yoghourt.
2. Learn to appreciate the feeling of a tiny hunger. Consider it a sign from your belly to your brain saying "hey dude : you're losing weight right now ! Keep up the spirit !".
That, plus exercise offcourse. For myself, I found podBiking a great calory burner : iPod + real bicycle for 2 hours at least. Get a real bike though, not that mountainbike shit. That's for sissies. A racing bike is a bit more expensive, but it's so much more fun to ride since you don't get exhausted from rubbing the asphalt all the time with those huge gripping tires. When i switched from mountainbikes to racebikes, my appetite for cycling doubled. I do twice as many hours now as I did before.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
1. Quit drinking beer in the office. If you really must be inebriated while you're coding, try whiskey instead.
2. People won't look at you funny if you work in the office and work out out of the office.
3. Tell me what slack-ass place you work at so I can get a job there.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
It hasn't even been three months since the Hacker's Diet was mentioned.
Basically, one of the points made is that it takes a lot of exercise to lose weight. Although John Walker (the author) does suggest exercise, he recommends using a 10-15 minute a day program based off that of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Personally, by watching my calorie intake, without exercising, I've lost about 30 pounds since April, and I'm trying to shed another 10-20 to get back to the 150-160lb range. I'm guessing that cutting out sodas has has the most profound impact on what I've changed, diet wise. Of course, I had to slowly cut back... It's not like I was drinking 3L of Mt. Dew per day, as I was in college, but I was probably drinking a good 1.5L of sodas per day. Oh...and you do have to drink water, or as a compromise, sports drinks, as fruit juices tend to have just as mushc sugar as sodas.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Not a problem. Wear bike clothes on your way to work.
In the Panniers described earlier in the thread you carry your work clothes, some deodorant and a dampened towel in a large Ziploc bag.
Get to work, hop in the restroom, use a stall as a changing station. Wipe down with the towel & put it back in the bag. Apply deodorant. Change into your work clothes and comb hair.
When you are sitting around and sweating, the sweat is more oily and you will stink. When you sweat from constant physical exertion, the sweat does not tend to stink as much.
Change back into the bike clothes for the trip back.
BTW: Real cyclists don't wear underwear.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
And lay off the carbohydrates too. This might start a flame war (Atkins diet arguments and such.) You should lay of the bread, chips, orange juice, and other things that have a lot of carbs. This stuff gets absorbed by your body and makes you fat.
Yes, excess carbs do get turned to fat. However, so do excess protein and excess fat. The difference is that carbs and protein are 4 cal/gram, while fat is 9 cal/gram. You do the math.
Actual fat is more or less just passing through and makes it into the toilet with your centrum multivitamin.
Don't know who told you that but they didn't know what they were talking about. Fat is readily absorbed. Notice how people who eat a lot of fried food get fat? That's right. Fat makes you fat. Shocking, I know, but it's true. The only way fat isn't completely absorbed is to eat a ton of it really quickly. The problem is that 1) your body is then absorbing fat as fast as it possibly can, which is enough to make you morbidly obese, and 2) any fat in your poo gives you nasty diarrhea, which I'm assuming isn't an attractive solution. Otherwise, pretty much all fat is absorbed.
Cutting back on the carbohydrates and stepping up on the exercise is really what makes the difference.
Excercise is of course good - particularly intensive cardio, as the longer it takes you to get your heart rate back to normal after excercise, the more calories you burn. Additionally, doing a lot of frequent cardio can raise your metabolism. Think of it as excercising when you aren't excercising. Good deal, eh?
Regarding the carbs fiasco - I guarantee you, if I eat 1 pound of carbs, and you eat 1 pound of fat, you will put on twice the weight as you consume (more than) twice the calories. The mitigating factor is that simple carbs are broken down much faster. Put a cracker in your mouth, and within seconds it tastes sweet - because it's broken down into simple sugar before it even hits your stomach, and simple sugar is readily absorbed like nothing else.
That is bad because eating a lot of simple carbs spikes your blood sugar, causing your body to release a ton of insulin. However, because it was a short-term sugar spike, you now have too much insulin, causing blood sugar to plummet. At the same time, your stomach has emptied, making you really hungry. That's why simple carbs are bad.
So what to do? To lose weight, you have to eat fewer calories than you use, of course. Naturally, that means regulating your blood sugar and keeping yourself non-hungry with the least calories possible. A nearly all-fat diet is bad because, while you're satisfied (fat digests slowly), you also consume massive amounts of calories. Simple carbs are the opposite - each binge is small, but you're hungry every 10 minutes. The best recommendation is a good amount of protein, complex carbs, and a diet with 30% of calories from fat. That way, you don't eat too often, and you don't get 2000 calories/meal, either.
Complex carbs are things like whole grains and such. So brown, whole-grain bread is good. If you like pasta and rice, again get the whole-grain stuff, and cook it less time than usual - cooking carbs in water breaks them down, effectively digesting them. The more they digest in the pot, the quicker they are absorbed in your body.
Bottom line is the Atkins diet is dangerous, containing way too much saturated fat, cholesterol, and calories from fat, and too much protein can be bad on the kidneys. Eat a balanced diet low in simple carbs, substituting complex carbs instead, and you'll do well.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Hard liquor is much better for you. In fact, if you drink enough right after a meal, you can actually get negative calories from it...
Forget the girlfriend, just send a picture of the bike. I can just take the seat off and kill two birds with one stone.
Forget the bike!
Buy a real musclecar. Not some silly Honda with a bunch of stickers and a 3" exhaust tip on the 1" diameter manifold-back pipe, but something old and with a V8 driving the rear wheels. And restore it for the fun and love of the machine.
*Nothing* keeps you in shape better than lying on the floor of your garage trying to hold a transmission above your head with one hand while you fumble the bolts in place with the other hand. The threat of having a transmission fall on your head makes you discover strength you never knew that you had.
Carrying an engine block into your house to keep it from flash-rusting over the winter, or dragging a pair of cast iron cylinder heads *and* a toolbox from one end of a self-service junkyard to the other, all serve to keep you in excellent shape.
Never mind the feeling down below when you start that motor up for the first time, freshly rebuilt with 12:1 compression, a lopey camshaft and solid motor mounts... forget the bike! :)
Also, I drink like an Irishman, I eat like a pig, and I walk a lot because I like it.
Net effect? 6'4", 34" waist, 200lbs even, toned all over, and I can lift and hold a LaserJet 4si above my head. Also, mechanics coveralls and a welding helmet make a good Halloween costume when you're too lazy to go shopping.
Dating isn't a problem. (But make a habit of holding the drink in the left hand so that the right isn't cold and clammy when you shake hands with potential mates...)
Are you fat? If you want to fix the situation, the solution is really easy, but often overlooked. Stop eating so much, and/or get more exercise. That's it, that's all.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.