How To Lose Weight Whilst Working From Home

Working at home has it’s perks like working in your pajamas and not having to travel during rush hour. Depending on the nature of your work you might even be able to work whenever you like, meaning lies in everyday . All of this easily leads to one thing – putting on weight, getting less fit and ruining your healthy routines.

Here I’ll give a few tips as to how you can reverse these effects – lose weight, get fitter, have a better work life balance and being healthy.

Setting A Schedule

It’s too easy to lose track of time when your working from home, especially when you can get up at any time and work whenever you like. Getting up at a set time each day is very important for the success of the remainder of the day.

Waking up and falling back to sleep has happened a countless number of times (and will happen again), it makes you groggy and irritable – not a great start to the (now very late) morning.

Start to going to bed at a reasonable time, get enough sleep and get up at the same time each day. At the start you will struggle so use an alarm – it only takes a few days to get use to the new routine.

Start your day right to get all your tasks for the day done smoothly – that includes some time for exercise.

Sleep is essential for your body and brain to repair itself and recharge it’s energies. Make sure you get at least 7 hours of sleep every night. Go to bed around the same time each night and get up at the same time, after a couple of weeks you’ll become very use to this schedule and you’ll find falling asleep is very quick and you’ll wake up before your alarm goes up.  Sleep well to aid weight loss, because a lack of sleep will only impede your body’s ability to maintain itself including the metabolizing of fat.

Eat your meals a regular times, don’t miss a meal and make sure to eat healthily.

If you’re trying to lose weight then you should have a suitable diet plan – typically a balanced diet which steers you away from processed foods, as well a plan for when to eat.

Stick to the plan, it should be easier to do than if you worked in a communal office since you have a fusl kitchen at home and all the supplies.

Give yourself enough time to prepare delicious meals that you really look forward.

It’s easy and tempting to sit on the couch all day, switch on the TV and eat nibbles. This is where working in a communal environmental has a clear advantage, but on the other hand this is a great opportunity to nurture your self discipline.

You should have an exercise plan for losing weight, stick to it by making sure you actually schedule in some time to do the workouts. Don’t just say that you’ll do exercise all willing and good – actually pencil it in your diary, write it on a whiteboard, anything to make it a concrete task that you need to do.

Make it like any other work task, feel obliged to complete it.

I might flog this point to death one day (but I’m far from it), but drinking enough water is essential.

If you don’t drink adequate amounts of water and regularly you won’t be able to function at your best – headaches, sluggishness, tiredness, sleepiness, hunger, constipation are all typical signs of dehydration.

Drink 2 liters per day and more if you’re sweating a lot from hot climate or exercise. Spread it out evenly throughout the day, 2 liters is roughly 8 glasses so by drink 1 glass each time you work it out.

If you’re like me a timer and alarm will come in handy. I often lose track of time when I’m working (or doing anything else for that matter) and often I’ll forget to drink water for hours and miss meal times.

If this is you then set alarms for meal times or a bit earlier so you can prepare a meal.

A timer is handy for making sure you do tasks within a reasonable amount of time. A simple time limit has great psychological effect, it naturally makes you concentrate more and work effectively.

30 minute intervals are a good. It’s a good amount of time to work solidly without burning out, and gives you a chance to walk around to avoid sitting for too long and grab a drink of water.

You’re asking for trouble if you have these around the house, it’s just too tempting and easy to give into cookie cravings.

At least when you were at the office there were lots of distractions to keep those tasty snacks out of your mind – people to talk to, work to do, meetings, etc. But at home you have much less of that, you need to control your own schedule, self start and combat snacking all on your own.

The easiest way to not be swayed by the ice cream is to not have them within reach, and that means not buying them. I’m sure most of the time you wouldn’t bother going down the shop every time you had the slightest urge for a bad of chips.

Keep junk food out of reach.

Avoid adding sugar to your drinks and certainly avoid sugar snacks. You can easily solve the sugary snacks problem by following the tip above but sugary teas and coffee are a habit.

You could try and not keep sugar in the house but it’s a staple ingredient so it’s hard to do so. If you choose to not cook with sugar at all then this may not be a bad idea, but for me it would be impossible.

Instead you could practice drinking unsweetened drinks and I’m sure you’ll soon get use to and actually prefer the natural taste of tea and coffee (or whatever it is you drink).

If you can’t let go of that sweet taste then sweeteners is a suitable option, at least they won’t affect your blood sugar and are virtually calorie free.

Quick Tip: Put a sprinkle of cinnamon in your coffee instead of sugar, it makes it taste great and the cinnamon helps to increase insulin sensitivity – which is good for reduce stress on your pancreas and hunger between meals.

When you said work decade ago it would conjure up images of farmers, laborers, carpenters, blacksmiths, etc. Nowadays when you think of work it’s most to do with sitting at a desk, typing away or talking on the phone. And usually for pretty much for the whole 9 to 5.

This isn’t going to change by working from home, you still need to work at the desk for much of the time. Sitting down for long periods of time is certainly not good for health, it increasesvisceral fat build up and lowers your metabolism, it’s common to start feeling sleepy after a couple of hours sitting.

So here are a few ideas to combat the effects of sitting for too long:

Is your chair too comfy? I find that even the most supportive chair gets uncomfortable quite quickly, and starts hurting your legs even.

Sit on an exercise ball instead. The natural position you adopt helps your posture as well as works your core muscles slightly. Overall it’s much more comfortable than sitting completely stationary for hours with all your weight leaning against the chair.

It won’t take long to get use to and you’ll find that’s quite a comfortable position. The bounciness makes it less harsh on your legs and bottom, and can be quite fun too.

These look like someone took apart a bike and just presented the pedals.
In fact that pretty much what they are (with some resistance). Put them by you feet under your desk and you can pedal away whilst your working. I don’t find the posture of sitting in an office chair and pedaling very comfortable, but you can certainly give it a go. You can also use it whilst sitting anywhere really not just at the desk.

Treadmill workstation

Exercise bike workstation