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How To Avoid Workplace Weight Gain

by — Last updated: 2021-09-26 in Weight Loss

Try as you might, those pesky few pounds just won’t shift. You do everything right at home – eat healthily, go to the gym, and lead an active lifestyle, but when it comes to work it’s a different story. Avoid workplace weight gain with these simple steps.

The science behind losing weight is easy.

You simply need to consistently eat fewer calories than you burn, through a combination of reducing your caloric intake, eating healthy foods and exercising, to get to your goal weight. But if it really was that easy, surely everyone would be slim, slender and athletic?

 

Most peoples’ main issues when it comes to dieting are psychological ones. We can all be good with our diets and training for a day or two is not that hard either, but soon enough, temptation comes along and demotivation sets in. Once that happens, unless you're exceptionally disciplined, you’ll off the wagon and back to square one in no time. Many "losers" even gain back more than they lost, leading to an even higher BMI at the end of their weight loss efforts.

A prime example of this is in the workplace.

You can be as good as you like. If you’re serious about losing weight, and prepared to do everything you need to do, then you probably cook your meals from scratch and make a healthy lunch before work in the morning, or the night before. You make sure your desk is filled with diet-friendly snacks, and either go for a walk during your lunch hour, or have your training clothes in the car, ready to hit the gym straight after work finishes.

With all this in place, you should be on to a winner. Unfortunately though, it’s not always that straightforward. Losing weight when you’re in control of your own day, have little contact with anyone else and can generally do as you please is easy. When you’re at work though, it’s a different matter.

What stands in the way of achieving your weight loss goals at work?

Potential Weight Loss Barriers at Work 

Colleagues

Colleagues are by far the number one reason you’ll gain weight at work. They’ll fall into one of three categories:

  • Some colleagues will be really supportive of what you’re doing, and may even be trying to lose weight, or get into the healthy lifestyle themselves. These people are your perfect companions when dieting at work.
  • Others won’t care one bit about their own health, and likely won’t care about yours either. They’re not the easiest people to be around if you want to avoid temptation, as they’ll be stuffing their faces with candy, chips and junk food all day. But so long as you can get past this, you should be okay.
  • The final group are the worst. These colleagues will usually have been on a diet in the past, and failed, and now want to see you fail too. They’ll try to tempt you with any food that’s around the office, or make fun of you for doing what you’re doing. Ignore them. They’re just trying to bring you down so they can feel better about themselves for being out of shape and unfit. Stick with your plan, and don’t succumb to temptations.

Office Parties, Birthdays and Vending Machines

Even without colleagues, it can be hard to stick to your diet when there are so many occasions where high calorie junk food is on offer.

Office vending machines are the worst culprits. They’re staring you in the face for eight or nine hours a day, just willing you to give in and spend your change on a tasty treat that will wreck your hard work. If you've been extremely busy and haven't eaten for hours, the vending machine may offer the only food in sight. This food is high in calories and close to zero in nutritional value, and it will sabotage your weight loss efforts while still leaving you hungry.

Late meetings can often involve pizzas or Chinese takeout. No one else can be bothered to bring their own food, and they’re not too fussed about their health, so they pick up the phone and call the nearest provider of grease-laden, salt-filled, high sugar, high fat food – if you can even call it that.

There’s an unwritten rule in many offices that when it’s someone’s birthday, there must be cake. This isn’t too bad if you work in a small time, but in a big firm, it’s a nightmare, with birthdays cropping up a few times every week. Three servings of cake each week can easily add a couple of thousand calories to your weekly intake.

How to Overcome the Barriers

Prepare

This was touched on briefly earlier, but if you’re prepared, and have a set plan in place, you’re far more likely to stick to your diet. Don’t just turn up to work each day hoping there’ll be a healthy option in the canteen, or that you should be able to get 15 minutes at lunch to run to the store and grab something.
 
 
There may not be a decent menu choice, and you might have to work through lunch. Even if you do get time to go out and get something, what’s to say you’ll choose the right thing? If you’re hungry, and craving food, you need cast iron willpower to get a chicken salad or lean beef wrap over a burger and fries or a fully loaded sandwich.

Prioritize

If you’re planning to go to the gym in your lunch hour, then write it down. Likewise if you want to get there straight after work, make sure you finish when you intend to. Obviously there will be occasions when it will be necessary to work late, but these should be the exception, not the rule. Write your gym times down, and you’re much more likely to get there and not skip workouts. Alternatively you could go before work, before the stresses of the day start.
 

Associate with Like Minded People

This goes back to the three types of workplace colleagues. By far the best people for you to associate with are those in the first category. If you spend more time with people with similar interests, goals, and passions, you’ll get where you want to be much faster. You can set each other challenges, meet for regular progress reports, and swap workout and diet ideas.

You can also join a workplace club, or set up a dieting group or exercise class. Employers are often concerned with improving employees’ health, so see if your company might be interested in funding a group instructor to come in once a week, or invest in some workplace exercise equipment.

Snack Attack

Fill your desk with healthy snacks.

This does a few things. Firstly, in case you forget your lunch, or aren’t able to find anything suitable to eat, you’ve got some stand-bys in place. Secondly, when all your coworkers are eating junk, you can pick foods from your own private stash to keep you feeling full and satisfied. Good non-perishable snack choices include –

- Tinned fish – tuna, salmon, mackerel etc.
- Unsalted, unroasted nuts such as almonds, Brazil nuts, walnuts, pecans, pistachios or macadamias.
- Dried figs, prunes and dates.
- Beef jerky
- Protein shakes
- Peanut or cashew nut butter

And finally …

Relax

Getting stressed about your job does nothing for your waist line. Getting uptight and stressed increases your levels of the hormone cortisol, which has been associated with excess fat storage and weight gain. Take a few minutes every hour or two to switch your brain off and relax, and try to leave workplace stresses at work.

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