Hiya, up till last year i was working in a office, sitting on my *** all day, i was putting on weight, but i found it easy to diet, as i had to fit into smartish clothes & were amongest other girls, so "wanted" to look resonable!
Anyway last year, when i left to start my own business (dog training & dog walking) i kinda expected to lose weight easily due to all the exercise, but the opposite is true & all the time driving from job to job= Snacking,
& being able to stop at any shop/fast food= diaster. Im not sure how much i put on , but it was a good dress size (size & a half)
Casual doggy clothes= hidden weight gain
Sooo what ive changed.....making my job work FOR my weight loss
Number 1 rule: No snacking EVER when driving
Number 2 rule: if i have a hour or two spare inbetween jobs, do not go home/park up to eat, but take MY dogs for a extra walk or training.
At the moment, that alongside my diet is working!!!! The next thing is dog shows start soon, & that is Loooongggg days, early starts lots of driving....bring it on!
It hinders because I get so bored all I want to do is eat! And they're constantly having parties in the lunchroom and leaving the extra food out for the taking.
They help because occasionally they do weight loss competitions for money - it's good motivation!
I work from home all but 2 weeks a year. I find the two weeks in the office to be a bigger challenge between food in breakroom, pot lucks, going to lunch with the girls and being able to stop on the way home for groceries or takeout.
So, while it is true my kitchen is near all day, I control what goes in it and keep the tempting stuff out!
My job helps... I only eat during the day what I pack in my lunch bag. I also belong to the gym at work - so I go on my lunch break. It's the days when I am home and left to my own devises that things get tricky. I think I might start "packing" my lunch bag for those days, too.
It hinders because I get so bored all I want to do is eat! And they're constantly having parties in the lunchroom and leaving the extra food out for the taking.
They help because occasionally they do weight loss competitions for money - it's good motivation!
I think Natural and I work for the same company! There have been left over bagels and pastries in the break room fridge for DAYS. But the copier and fax machine are in there too so I can't avoid it. I am lucky tho that there are 3 other women (2 of which are motivated) on this journey with me. We keep each other in check. And it also offers up some healthy competition!
Once I got past the 3pm grazing habit, I did a lot better at work.
I'm not sure it really makes a difference. I know I like to use work as an excuse. I gained 10 lbs right away when I started this job last fall. After 3 years of working from home, I'm now struggling to find a time to exercise now that I'm back in an office and have to juggle work and childcare. (I can't do it before or after! I need to pick up my son! I can't do it at lunch! I get too sweaty!) But the truth is, except for a few motivated months here and there, I didn't exercise at lunch when I worked from home and had complete freedom to work sweaty if I wanted. And for a time before that when I was in an office, I managed to drag myself out of bed early for time on the exercise bike.
I've managed to gain weight or lose in sedentary jobs and in active ones. In my one period of unemployment, I seemed to have effortlessly maintained. I think it's all internal. There are advantages and pitfalls everywhere, and when my mindset is right I figure out how to use it to my advantage, and when it's not, I use it to my disadvantage.
I gained a ton of weight when I started at this position too, but I think it was because I had a lot more free time and options for healthier eating that had kept me thinner (but not ideal weight!).
This job made it worse because there was a lot of food sharing and going out with coworkers and meeting up with friends because I no longer had the time like I did before. Oh and the traveling! So hard to eat well while traveling. It's been a long learning curve.
But now, as I am losing weight, it's helping me. I can bring my own food, I'm antisocial (and everyone has gotten used to it) and I don't feel the pressure to eat out (and no one is expecting me to join them anyway, so it's a relief). I can eat at home if I want to and at work I don't have snacks to overeat.
I've also had to crave out work out time in my work routine and it helps that my job is flexible to adjust to it.
I work 12 hour shifts and eat all my meals there when at work. Because the food is ordered in the morning when I have just eaten breakfast I always choose a healthy lunch and tea and we dont have any snacks available throughout the day. I struggle more being at home when I am alone in the house. That is when I want to raid the fridge and think about food constantly. The plus side of being at home is that I can take the dog out into the middle of nowhere for a few hours whereas at work I get very little exercise.
my job hinders my diet in that I am responsible to keep the "snack machine" filled (candies, cookies, donuts, chips, etc.) and I also am responsible to fetch the cake (or ice cream) every other month when it's time to celebrate office birthdays. PLUS hosting a lot of catered lunches, retirement parties, company outings, etc.
5 years now!!! I started this job at 150 & worked my way up to 192 lbs... ... ugh, it's getting easier...
Last edited by Beach Patrol; 04-01-2011 at 10:43 AM.
I sit in front of a laptop all day, which doesn't help.
But since the new health plan went into effect, my company actually seems to be doing more than paying lip-service to "preventive" measures. A few weeks ago, they overhauled the cafeteria. In particular, the salad bar & the choices on it, and the selection of fresh fruit. It is now easier than ever to eat healthily there -- much easier than it was when I started working there in 1998.
I'm trying to see this as a bright spot & a sign of progress.
I work in an office setting and between stress, boredom, sitting on my butt, and office parties, it's a nightmare.
I eat all day when I'm at work. I've tried not bringing food to snack on but then I feel like I'm starving and it's all I can think about and then I worry that I'll binge on the snack machine, so not snacking is not an option.
I try to bring a lot of low calorie snacks that I can munch on through the day and not feel guilty about, but some days it's a challenge.
When I'm home, I hardly ever have snack attacks like that. Some days I even struggle to get all of my calories in. It's so weird.
Just one more reason to quit my job soooooooooooooooooooooon!
Mine both hinder and help. It hinders because at both jobs, there are ALWAYS luncheons and various reasons to have food lol. Always food EVERYWHERE! Especially at the library where they find any reason possible to have cake, cookies, donuts, ice cream, etc. lol
Having my 2 jobs do help because there's a lot of walking, especially when I do tours at the museum. Also, I work very long hours and never have time to eat outside my lunch breaks lol. Thats a plus!
My job is a hinderence, but it isn't as bad as other places I've worked. The good part is I work in a small office for a large company and I am here most of the time by myself, so no food in the office! The bad part is I work very, very long hours and have to get up very early to get here on time, so I don't have time away from work to shop and prepare the right foods or work out as much as I want to. I am working on managing that time better though.
For years as I worked in the outside world I was sure it was much harder in an office environment because of all the constant food (I worked in a hospital and the drug reps and RN's always brought in food.. it was everywhere, all the time).
Now that I have a home based business it's almost just as hard. For some reason I am much more easily distracted by hunger, even the slightest, when I am working in my home office.. I think it's the fact that the kitchen is only a few feet away. I cook healthy meals but I have problems keeping my portions down with constant tripping to the fridge to graze.
I think mentally it feels "ok" because it's not pastry or donuts or "Thunder Cake".. (I used to call it Thunder Thigh Cake.. it was a specialty one of the Dr's brought in that his wife made once a week for us.. ugg, I think she was a size 0). It's leftover healthy stews or stirfries or grilled BBQ chicken.
In reality it's still a struggle. I guess it just always is!
how does your job help &/or hinder your diet?
