How to work from home … and not get fat!

There are lots of bonuses to working from home – but one of the cons is it can be easy to put on weight. Writers particularly will spend long hours in front of a computer. Then, it can be all too easy to reach out for the biscuits or wander into the kitchen for yet another cup of coffee. Here we give some keeping slim tips that work for us!

Build exercise into your day. One of the pluses about being at home is there is no commute to work – unless you call walking down the stairs to your work station exercise. You might be surprised how many calories rushing to the station, walking between tubes or to and from the car park and even standing on a train uses. So make up for this loss of exercise by building into your working day at home. It might mean a quick walk to the newsagent’s to pick up the papers or walking rather than taking the car to pick up the kids from school. Don’t forget as well that making time to nip to the gym or pop out for a 30 minute jog round the block can be a welcome break from your computer. Don’t forget these days you can get all your emails on your phone so you don’t need to worry about missing something important while you keep fit.

Set aside regular mealtimes. It’s tempting when you work from home to have breakfast on the hoof – or even to find on a busy day that it goes past lunchtime and you haven’t had anything to eat! Keeping blood sugars level – eating regularly – stops cravings for food that isn’t so healthy. And make sure you do take a lunch break or proper tea break. Even when you are busy, five minutes away from your desk sat in a different room to eat a sandwich, will be reviving.

Plan your meals. If you know because you’re busy you grab an unhealthy lunch for quickness, then at the very least have a sandwich bought from a supermarket (perhaps you can walk and get it in the morning) ready to eat. If you are worried about the calories, anything under 300 calorie count on the pack is fine. If you can try to plan lunches when you do your shopping so you do have something to eat every day that is quick and healthy.

Identify danger points. Afternoons can be a key time to reach out for biscuits with a cuppa. Perhaps you feel you need a sugar rush in the afternoon. Or you might find under stress you natually yearn chocolate for a brain boost. So keep a healthier option handy, such as a no fat yoghurt, banana, rice cakes or raisins handy (20 chocolate raisins make a great snack under 100 calories if you must have chocolate.)

Watch your drinks. It’s very easy if you work from home to have the kettle constantly on the boil for cups of tea and coffee. If you do this, try to have at least some without sugar at all or eventually all those sugars will collect around your waistline…

Don’t have food on your desk. Make sure you at least have to walk some distance to the kitchen to get it – and while you are on your walk, ask yourself ‘do I really need this?’ By the time you open the cupboard, you might not!

Keep an eye on your weight. It’s easy to ignore a tightening waistband especially if you ‘haven’t got time to diet’. But if you are putting on the pounds it is easier to nip it in the bud and lose the weight sooner rather than later. So do weigh yourself once a week and if weight is creeping up, try jotting down what you are eating in a day. As a rough guide a woman needs 2000 calories and a man 2500 a day but if you are sedentary, you might well find to keep trim you do need much less. And therefore you might be surprised by how those little snacks add up!

Do you have any keep thin at work tips? Why not add them below…?