It's only been recently that I've realized what a huge difference your job can make when it comes to losing weight. I have a friend who used to nanny (like I do) and she lost quite a bit of weight in that time. Now she has an office job and has gained almost 10lbs back.
I feel very lucky to have a job that involves so much running around, taking kids on walks, dancing, etc. But a serious problem with my line of work is that I also spend a lot of time in the kitchen which makes me think of food constantly.
So how much of an impact does your job make? My mom sits 8 hours a day at her job BUT they also have a free gym in the building for employees. Another one of my friends has a pretty sedentary job, but they have a "bike to work" bonus incentive.
I was definitely thinner when I had a job that always kept me moving.
Now I have an office job for a company that owns a bunch of restaurants, including the restaurant below my office where lunches are free. This, of course, presents a whole new set of problems.
I try to bring my lunch from home as often as I can, but free lunches are hard to pass up. Our chefs have learned how picky I am (not cooking meat in butter, dressing always on the side, etc...)
Exercise has become way more important to me. Sitting at a comp all day is hard sometimes and I manage it better when I'm active outside of work. I also started taking a brisk walk at lunch withone of my coworkers.
I am fortunate enough to have a job that lets me work from home. While I do sit all day in that job, and work lots of ours (10-14 on a typical day), I am able to:
1. Exercise before work or on a lunch break without worrying about getting sweaty and having to be presentable
2. Lift weights during meetings where I need to listen/pay attention, but not actually type anything
3. Cook healthy foods for dinner, even if they take a little more time...I can do 15 min of prep with my laptop in the kitchen.
Lately, though, the meeting schedule has been preventing me from doing some of the exercise activities I used to do. It's a packed day, and because I do trade off some time doing food prep and exercising, it is not uncommon for me to be working on and off until 11 at night.
This post hit home to me, I was thinking about this exact thing last night. I work in a nursing home, well actually I work in either assisted living area or memory care. We eat with the residents Ithis is part of our job) and the food is not exactly healthy. Recently I've started bringing my supper and warm it up and then eat with everyone. This is great, but at the end of the night (when everyone is bed) I'm alone with a kitchen with cookies, snacks, candy and other things. There isn't much to do and I found myself checking out the cookies and candy last night. UGH!! and OH NO!! I didn't eat the, instead I pretended I was doing a WATP video up and down the halls. When my replacement showed up (I didn't hear her come in) We both started laughing . . . OH MY, she is a WW maintainer so completely understood, but I must have been a sight, marching down the halls, kicking and what not . . .
Because I don't work in the office I am not having to resist all the food events. I work in the office a few weeks a year and seems like there are always goodies in the kitchen, potlucks, and lunch with co-workers.
I dress in the morning in workout clothes so ready to workout when the opportunity presents itself.
If it is a slow day, employer asks me to take 2 hour lunches, and because I'm already in workout gear, I'm off to the Y!
The minuses:
When it's busy, longest break I can get is 10 minutes. 9-10 hours with a headset connected to the laptop allows for very little movement. I have to have a formal exercise program even if not trying to lose weight just so I don't die, my day is so sedentary.
No one can see me eating, so if I make multiple trips to kitchen there is no social pressure.
Last edited by caryesings; 12-23-2010 at 01:06 PM.
The type of job you have makes a huge difference! I was always overweight, then when I was 18 I said enough was enough and basically starved myself from 172 to the low 140's. For the next three years the weight slowly crept back on, but I maintained somewhere in the 140's that whole time. I worked as a waitress during those years and ate free meals after my shifts and went drinking all the time and never watched what I ate. So less than 10lbs in 3 years was not really a bad gain.
Then I started at a credit union. The person who hired me told me I'd gain 20 lbs working there (our Mom's are good friends and to be honest I could tell she was excited at the prospect of my gaining the weight back). At first it was a gradual gain, then I was promoted from the teller line and went from at least standing in one spot to sitting 80% of the time. I gained almost 30 lbs in 2 years.
In mid-September a co-worker who also had an on the feet job before starting at the CU a year ago suggested a weight loss competition. She is 5'2 and was some where between 115-120 a year ago, she was 129 when we started.
And lo and behold, of the 4 who participated I am the only one who lost more than 5 lbs and that has stayed committed since the 12 weeks was up. Two of them stopped weighing in around week 9.
It's not a surprise though, at our job there is always candy everywhere, leftover food that was ordered for volunteers that we are basically expected to finish off, and everyone orders out for lunch all the time. Plus, you're sitting most of the time.
I miss being able to maintain my weight without thinking about it, but I love health insurance and regular work hours more. This post was insanely long, sorry!
My sister works with kid and she says it definitely helps keep her in shape.
As for me, my office is good about things like being healthy overall but right now during the holidays and when you have been offered cupcakes, apple strudels, cookies, and some toffee candies it gets really hard to say no!
I teach, and I don't think the teaching part helps much: I stand a lot, but standing isn't much better for calorie burn than sitting, and I don't actually move around a whole whole bunch. My classes are too huge: there's no room.
Where my job does help is it keeps me BUSY. I have 25 minutes for lunch, and I need that to prep my classes. There's no way I can run to McDonalds or anything during the day, and I am not a vending machine person, so the food I bring is the food I eat. Even when I am really hungry, I am too busy to think much about it. And I don't have a problem resisting birthday cake in the lounge. I'm too proud/vain to eat junk food in front of my coworkers very often at all.
Summers can be bad, though: in my building we call it "yoga pants syndrome", when you spend all summer wearing yoga pants and think you've put on "a little weight" but then when you go to put your work clothes at the start of the school year, it's a shock to discover how small they suddenly are. This is made worse by the fact that all my teacher-friends want to meet for lunch all summer to keep in contact. I've been trying to get everyone to start thinking "coffee", not "lunch". It costs too much in every way!
I work for a veterinarian, so I have a very active job, lots of lifting, and I log about 3 miles a day just around the office. It helps. When I've had office jobs, my behind got very big.
I work in an office job, 8 hours a day. However, my company promotes fitness and actually gives us monthly bonuses for "steps" or how many minutes we have worked out that month. They also contribute to health club memberships and in January are sponsoring a team in the local "Shrink A Thon" for charity.
All of this side motivation definitely helps. I work for an Electrical Cooperative that is very active in the community and they actually got the Healthy Business of the Year award this last year.
Not going without saying, we have plenty of bad influences as well. Especially this time of year.
I teach middle school and my job is so helpful. When I'm home I don't move around that much because my apartment is on the small side. At school I am constantly walking around, I almost never sit. It also helps keep me in a routine. Breaks are killer for staying on plan, so I look forward to work.
My doesn't really hinder my weight loss anymore than other jobs. I'm on my feet all day, but I just stand in one spot. We have to take a lot of stairs and walk a lot, but not enough I'd consider to be active. The only hard part about my job is that it has a break room with free cooked food (and nachos!!), and a fountain drink machine. Food I can easily resist by bringing my own healthy food and eating it there. But coke is my downfall.
My job is sedentary (teaching 4 classes a week, 40 hours of office time...talk about free time!) but it's a 2 mile walk up a big hill each way to get there. My coworkers occasionally bring snacks after they've gone on trips or around school events but it's not overwhelming. There is a cafeteria with tasty food on site but I prefer to bring my own lunches. I am still in probably the 75th percentile for size/weight among my female coworkers. Most of them are shorter and proportionally thinner than I am.
Overall I don't think my work has really hindered or helped weight loss. It's just there.
My job is very sedentary. I gained 30 lbs when I started here between sitting all day long, working long hours (and not going to work out) and eating out all the time (plus the PCOS that was creeping up on me).
The other side of the coin is that now that I've been here for a long time, I know how to manage my time a lot better and I've also made the conscious decision to make my health a priority. So, I leave early to make it to my exercise classes and I bring lunch or I know exactly what I can eat.
I don't eat with my coworkers anymore and like some other threads have pointed out, it's hard and I've lost friendships because I don't do it. But my health is first. I have friends outside work and those are good friends that will stick by me regardless of my weight or eating habits!
I consider myself lucky that I can have the flexibility to make my health a priority.
How does your job help or hinder weight loss???
