How to be more active working a 9-5 desk job

silverwhistle

Difficult. You could take phone calls standing up and do a little discreet stretching. To start with you'll get a few strange looks but just explain why you're doing it. If you are doing 3/4 sessions a week that's already far ahead of many.


I'm retired so the problem doesn't arise. I play football and 11-a-side training for the coming season has already started. The younger women have a degree of natural fitness but at my age I have to push a bit harder!


I'm off to look at an allotment this afternoon, by bike. If I get it I'd hope to use the car to get there as little as possible and even combine visits with training runs. So it's finding something similar you can integrate into your day without making special trips anywhere. Perhaps a 10 minute session with a skipping rope when you get home from work whilst the tea is brewing, that sort of thing?


With a wood burner to feed I find my upper body exercise is already sorted, and it looks like this allotment will add more!

Poppy1984

MoneySeeker1 wrote: »

I had an office job before retirement. It was quite a big building and with stairs to walk up and down (rather than taking the lift), and I only took 30 minutes for lunch. But I made sure I got out every single lunchtime, whether I had shopping to do or no, and had a walk-around for that 30 minutes. My lunch got eaten whilst I was working, in order to release the full 30 minutes for going out.

This was done mainly to get me away from my workplace, rather than for exercise reasons, as it was one of my stress mechanisms I used in order to calm myself down enough that I didn't hand in my notice (as that wasn't possible financially).

So I got in an hour of walking in my leisure time each day. 15 minutes walk to work, 30 minutes at lunchbreak walking around, 15 minutes walk back from work. So that was a total of an hour walking in my leisuretime each day, not counting what walking around I had to do within the office building.

Personally, I've found that that walking around in connection with work (most of my time spent sitting on my backside there) and the walking done anyway living in a city combined into keeping my weight fairly static. Since moving to a small town after retirement I realised that the weight was starting to go on, as I'm not getting in that "work walking" or all the walking to this thing/that thing/the other thing that I was doing in a more urban environment. Smaller places/more rural environments are bad for the figure imo and I can see what a difference having less walking now was having, as I painstakingly have to diet that extra weight back off again.

Thanks for sharing that's interesting! It just shows it just make a difference.

Poppy1984

silverwhistle wrote: »

Difficult. You could take phone calls standing up and do a little discreet stretching. To start with you'll get a few strange looks but just explain why you're doing it. If you are doing 3/4 sessions a week that's already far ahead of many.


I'm retired so the problem doesn't arise. I play football and 11-a-side training for the coming season has already started. The younger women have a degree of natural fitness but at my age I have to push a bit harder!


I'm off to look at an allotment this afternoon, by bike. If I get it I'd hope to use the car to get there as little as possible and even combine visits with training runs. So it's finding something similar you can integrate into your day without making special trips anywhere. Perhaps a 10 minute session with a skipping rope when you get home from work whilst the tea is brewing, that sort of thing?


With a wood burner to feed I find my upper body exercise is already sorted, and it looks like this allotment will add more!

I think you're right I need to start standing up more yea probably will get funny looks lol. Maybe I could start a trend off

jameskotler

Hello,

I am working as a fitness trainer for 10 years. Most of the people come to me with the same question. I know it's quite difficult to stick on your diet and go to the gym after working 9-5. But, to stay fit try to eat at least 4 small meals a day and avoid eating sugary and junk foods. Try to walk in your break time on daily basis after eating a lunch. Try to take black coffee at least once a day. I hope you are gonna get amazing results.

Poppy1984

jameskotler wrote: »

Hello,

I am working as a fitness trainer for 10 years. Most of the people come to me with the same question. I know it's quite difficult to stick on your diet and go to the gym after working 9-5. But, to stay fit try to eat at least 4 small meals a day and avoid eating sugary and junk foods. Try to walk in your break time on daily basis after eating a lunch. Try to take black coffee at least once a day. I hope you are gonna get amazing results.

Thanks for the reply, I will definitely try and fit a walk in on my lunch break and that's an interesting idea regarding having 4 small meals a day. I won't be having the black coffee im afraid I can't stand coffee lol

CarolynRach

I have a timer thing on my computer that alerts me every 30 minutes that I need to get up. I usually just walk to the kitchen to refill my glass of water or go to the loo. It really helps as otherwise I can sit all morning until lunch and then all afternoon until home time.
The one I use is called Time Out.

Poppy1984

CarolynRach wrote: »

I have a timer thing on my computer that alerts me every 30 minutes that I need to get up. I usually just walk to the kitchen to refill my glass of water or go to the loo. It really helps as otherwise I can sit all morning until lunch and then all afternoon until home time.
The one I use is called Time Out.

Oh thank you that sounds like a good idea, I'll have a look at that app

[Deleted User]

Poppy1984 wrote: »

I know the recommendation is to do around 10,000 steps a day but on week days I'm lucky if I get to 2,000/3,000 it's shameful!

I'd love tips for generally upping my daily activity

The 10,000 is a bit of a myth.

BBC recently tried 3 x 10 "Active" walks throughout the day:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42864061

Poppy1984

Remotely wrote: »

The 10,000 is a bit of a myth.

BBC recently tried 3 x 10 "Active" walks throughout the day:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42864061

Thanks so much for sharing this! I'm going tontry the 3 x 10 mins a day! I think what I might start doing is a brisk 10 min walk before work, one on my dinner and one after work on the days I don't have an exercise class but obviously the days I have an exercise class after work I'm going to be getting my heart rate up!

Thank you everyone for your replies it's really helped me feel so much better about my sedentary job!

custardy

Poppy1984 wrote: »

The office is tiny as is the car park, they'd look at me like I'd lost the plot if I got up to talk to them all the time. I have to drive to work as I need my car for meetings (more sitting) there's no where that I can park further away and walk in. I just feel like I'm becoming a slug

Park much farther away and cycle?