A study suggested that the workplace is increasingly to blame for the obesity epidemic. The longer people sit at their desks, the more likely they are to be overweight. Sedentary office-based workers dubbed ‘desk potatoes’ spend so many hours sitting at their desk that they are at risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a condition which causes potentially fatal blood clots that can travel to the heart, lungs or brain.
Of course, DVT is not the only health threat. Expanding waistlines are literally weighing workers down with many people finding their burgeoning weight affecting their mental output as well as their physical health.
The fact is that there really is no excuse not to get more active even if you are at your desk most of the day. And the best news of all is that there are lots of easy ways to do it that don’t involve losing your lunch hour to the gym. Just follow certain easy tips and make sure that you are slim and your muscles are in perfect shape.
Here are some great ways to integrate exercise and body building into your working day.
• Set your alarm 30 minutes earlier and walk to the station or to the shops to get a paper or cycle to work.
• If you drive to work, park at the farthest end of the car park.
• Practice desk exercise exercises like hamstring hug, pelvic tilt, vertical stretches, head tilt and self hug, as often as you can – at least a couple an hour.
• Walk to deliver messages to colleagues in the same building whenever you can.
• Use the stairs instead of the lift or escalator.
• Use the toilets furthest from your desk.
• Stand up when you are talking on the phone.
• Suggest a walking meeting to your colleagues – the fresh air may trigger more creative thoughts and the walking will get you fitter
• Send printing jobs to the printer farthest from your desk.
• Walk to buy your lunch or eat your lunch in a park and go for a walk afterwards.
• Try an ‘email free Friday’ – the idea being for employers to ban all internet emails every Friday in order to get employees walking around the office more.