Is Your Job Making You Fat?
 

I had a thread similar to this posted in another area, but decided to move it to the support forum. Here is my question to you... Is your job making you fat? Do breakfast carb-fest meetings, Mexican food buffet luncheons and dinner/cocktail meetings and receptions all get in the way of your weight loss progress?

I am having a difficult time losing weight as a result of my job. I work for a non-profit so there are constantly galas, fundraisers, cocktail receptions, trips, lunch meetings, breakfast meetings and late night functions. Healthy choices are often not an option so I try to make the best of the bad choices I have before me and eat small portion sizes, but it over results in over-eating later!

Can anyone share how they balance a very social work position with their nutritional, diet, exercise and weight loss plans? I know it is possible, I just need some advice and I am sure that others do too.

SW 165
CW 163
V-day Goal 154
TG 130

Yes It is very easy to gain weight at my job...We have a full dining center downstairs that has every kind of sweet imagined...we also have a company store with candy and chips and cokes....luckily for me they have healthy choices in each, so Its up to the employee to make the right choices....

now at my other job it was harder because the only food they had was vending machines and we were at a desk all day long....I gained prob 15 pounds just working there.....

Amazingly, no! I lost weight when I was working, and hopefully I will when I start again. I work retail, and the store is in a complex with no fast food places around - except for one hot dog stand, and I hate those things! I have to go to a grocery store to get food, or else I'm SOL.

Yes, it did! At one job, the boss/owner didn't want to give out raises so she would stock the break room all sorts of junk food all the time, and order in lunch a couple times a month. Nothing healthy, all chips and salty fried things. My next job required me to travel extensively and had to eat all my meals 3-4 days a week out. At that time I wasn't really watching my weight and went with the flow, eating what ever I wanted when ever I wanted. I put on 10 pounds in 6 months at that place.

It's hard when you work in a culture of eating. I had to step out of the lunch bunch at work because they would always go out to the "all-you-can-eat" places.

Sarah

Yes, yes, yes!!! Birthday parties, leftover Halloween candy, etc. And I sit all day which is the WORST. What I did (while I was pregnant) was bring in a plate of veggies and dip and leave it at my desk to munch on (and share).

Your post made me think of something I read about Oprah. Now you know she goes to alot of evening social events! I read where she does not eat after 7pm, so she usually has her meal before she even attends a function. You might try that, and stick to just consuming calorie-free beverages.

BRING FOOD WITH YOU! Keep healthy choices at your desk and eat before you go to a meeting, luncheon, gala, whatever. Bring a bottle of water or calorie-free drink with you (I know lots of people say diet soda is bad for you, but when I drink a carbonated beverage, it makes me feel fuller so I don't eat as much). Events at restaurants are more difficult, but you can always just order an appetizer or order veggies instead of fries...

I used to work in a restaurant. Talk about temptation and always having food around :dizzy: I eventually just had to STOP eating anything they had and bring my own food in a lunch bag. Everyone was very understanding and supportive. I know it's hard to pass up free food, but your health is worth it :^:

Yes and no. There's one woman who's constantly bringing chocolate into the office. She also constantly complains about her weight despite being tiny.

But there's also a fridge and a microwave to bring almost any sort of healthy food you can think of. It's far enough away from the city centre to get a bit of a walk at lunchtime, but close enough to make it worthwhile to go into the shops. The chocolate that does come in isn't forcefed, and you can turn it down without offence. The office is over the road from the gym so I can go before work.

There might be negatives, but I prefer to focus on the positives and the ways I can use my work to help fit things into my healthy lifestyle. The main one being exercise - if I have to go in anyway for work, I may as well pop by the gym on the way.

The first thing I thought when I read the title of your post was "YES!". But then I decided to own up to the fact the I have been making me fat. However, having a super sedentary job sure doesn't help with the weight loss process. The candy/chip boxes in the break room don't help, that is for sure. But as long as I take the time to plan things out and bring my own food, I am doing an amazingly good job at dropping the weight. Things are going to be interesting when I am up against a huge deadline and don't have time to leave my desk for more than a couple minutes. I have had to work around the clock in the past and it is going to take even more planning to navigate that successfully.

Ah, considering my full-time job is being a student..I don't really think it makes me gain weight. Besides the horrid school lunches (I've picked up packing lunches, thankfully), it keeps me in decent shape. My school is five floors up, hence five flights of stairs, and I-- of course-- am at the top level.
To be blunt, I've definately invested in walking shoes because of that school! xD

The availability of food at the job isn't so bad, but the stress levels....yeah, they affect me, and when they do, it's hard not to hit the vending machine. Sigh.

It hasn't, but if I'm not careful it will. I was just asked to work with a client up in a different state several days a week, monday and yesterday being my first two days at the client's offices. Well, between hotel room service for dinner and breakfast, and eating more for lunch while with the client than I normally eat, it will get dangerous if I don't watch what I am doing.

I have to go up again next week (and every week until May). But I am aware now of the pitfalls and am trying to think of healthy alternatives.

Thank you so much for logging onto this thread and giving me your input. I would love to keep it coming. I always think to myself " Gosh, it would be so easy to lose weight if losing weight was my job- if I were an aerobics instructor or Hollywood star! It is the attorneys, secretaries, doctors, computer programmers or in my case, the PR professionals who really have a hard time navigating the diet battlefield. But, it is not an excuse to fail and there are ways around it as I am learning from all of you. Keep up the good work!!!

SW 165 at 5'7
CW 161
V-day Goal 154
TG 130

temptation, temptation!

Beware of Pharmaceutical reps. bearing food.....(doctors are known to eat ANYTHING, especially fat and sugar)...Today there is both chinese and gourmet pizzas...I'm eating the tops of 2 veggie slices.....and salad.

I had a real issue when I started my healthy living plan. I work for a large health insurer, that provides gym facilities and encourages everyone to live a healthy life. We sponsor most of the high profile half marathons and 10k runs in the UK.

When it's busy, or when things are tough, or when we have done a great job, we are rewarded with chocolate, danishes, bottles of wine, bacon butties (sandwiches) and other stuff.

I actively campaigned that our company should put its money where their mouths were and start thinking this through. So they started providing fruit hampers and non food rewards as well as the junk. So will power is still required but there are alternatives now.

I do as Jillybean has suggested. I make sure I have plenty of healthy emergencies in my drawer. If I am going to a function, I take a little box of food in my rather large handbag. I try and plan for every eventuality. I allow myself a bit of leeway at times, but those times are always planned.

At the end of the day my job didn't make me fat, I made me fat, but it certainly didn't help! But things have changed and lots of others in my company have benefitted as a result.

Patients and visitors seem to think nurses need chocolate :)
The best thing that has happened to my health lately is stopping working night shift. You may have heard about some of the shake-ups in health care in Ontario. I'm not happy about most of them, but .... I'm happy that I no longer work graveyard!

Sometimes. I'm a nurse, and as a nurse I am constantly on my feet, running up and down halls, pushing heavy med carts around and generally just working up a sweat. However, there are times, especially around the holidays when it's utter diet ****! Family members bringing in donuts, wing trays, cookies, brownies, not to mention the breakfast meetings! Mostly what I try to do is bring my lunch and healthy snacks like yogurt covered raisins, fruit cups, and granola bars to snack on if I am famished before lunch/dinner. I am also fortunate enough to work right across from a Subway so if I do eat out that's where it's going to be.

Amy :)

I'm a PR professional too! I work at a software company, and large number of our employees, especially the programmers, gain a lot of weight working for this company. They put in really long hours and get catered meals a lot - but it is always stuff like pizza, pasta and Mexican. I used to eat their food when I'd work late - and work too late to go to the gym, so I did gain a lot of weight due to my job, which also includes sitting at a computer all day, and being less active. I'm working though to make sure meals at the office aren't the highlight of my day, packing my own healthy food and I found a gym near the office that I can go to right after work, even if it is late - no more excuses! I still haven't mastered dealing with the stress part. PR can be crazy in that department!

Sometimes. I have access to a fridge at work (school, really, I'm a grad student and I do research in a lab), so I stock it up with cal-free beverages and snacks, like lowfat cheeses, veggies, and whatnot. However, there is a LOT LOT LOT of social eating going on. One of my co-workers is always making cakes, cookies, breads, etc, and bringing them in, and there is a lot of eating out, especially at Mexican and Italian restaurants :eek:. Very hard (but not completely impossible) to eat healthy there. I haven't figured out the eating out thing just yet, but keeping the fridge stocked helps with other stuff. If I'm going to an evening party or social event, I'll just eat a full meal before I go and sip on diet soda when I get there. Kind of like Oprah!

My husband has more of this to deal with. He works in a call center, and his dept manager is always getting the CRAPPIEST food for them. They get free catered lunches when his department wins awards and contests - which they do a lot because they rock! And it's usually BBQ, pizza, sandwiches, greasy stuff, etc. And one time the manager brought in 250 donuts to split among something like 50 people. :yikes: Sometimes I am convinced that those people are just out to make all their workers fat. (Even though I know it's really not true!) He doesn't deal with it too effectively (he caves in a lot yet doesn't gain...whassup with that?!) but if it were me, I'd definitely get the fridge and my desk stocked up heavily with healthy stuff.

Oh wow--both YES and NO.

On the YES--we have a....SNACK CABINET in our company kitchen. Always well loaded down with chips, chocolate, and other favorite diet saboteurs! But...we also have a frig with company provided drinks that now include V-8 along with several types of diet drinks. And...the cabinet itself includes 100-cal packs of different things plus we normally have some fresh fruit. And...microwaves, toasters, and some other things so you can bring your own thing. Oh yeah, and oatmeal. But...they also tend to bring in pizza a lot and I just generally try to stay away from it. My office was recently moved so now I'm not ACROSS from the kitchen where even the smells used to get me.

For the travel/social thing--boy that *is* a challenge. I just try to make smart choices and be one of those picky orderers. For salads, I sometimes slip in a little container of my own salad dressing. And...I take my own snacks sometimes (like a banana). I've also found that requesting a vegetarian meal really helps cut down on the calories (I mean, even if it's a veggie burger that's a huge drop in calories over the beef). For restaurants, Thai is a favorite choice--I just pass on the rice and noodle dishes and get something full of veggies.

Now...the funny/good part about work--I find our kitchen a fabulous "dumping ground" when I'm gifted with...say chocolate at Christmas. I just bring it in, put it on the table, and everyone else moves in like little chocolate vultures and cleans it up for me :-) Also, when I really want a homebaked treat (occasionally) I fix cupcakes or cookies, eat a serving at home in the evening then put it all in containers and bring it to work the next day and again--all the other folks with no control or no weight problem move in and take care of the leftovers :)

We are a very small office and everyone knows everyone else's business. :gossip: I know that people are just trying to be nice and make you feel better, but often I feel like people are trying to get me to indulge by saying something to the effect of " oh you look great- you don't need to be on a diet" or " you are always so good, you deserve to have a little dessert." Most of the time I can firm up my resolve to be true to my needs, but it is like having five little devils :devil: sitting on your shoulder saying "go ahead, eat the chocolate muffin." VERY FRUSTRATING!!!! That is why I appreciate this website so much :hug: Thanks y'all!

Valentine Challenge
http://www.3fatchicks.com/weight-tra...5/154/161/.png

St. Patty's Challenge
http://www.3fatchicks.com/weight-tra...5/144/161/.png

Easter Challenge
http://www.3fatchicks.com/weight-tra...5/134/161/.png

Cinco De Mayo Challenge and Done!!!!
http://www.3fatchicks.com/weight-tra...5/130/161/.png