Keeping Fit When You Work At Home (And Hate Exercise)

It's hard enough to keep fit when you're busy. But what do you do when you work at home. Suddenly all those little tricks we're taught - get off the bus a stop early on the commute to work, take the stairs instead of the elevator at the office - are impractical. How do you get off a stop early when the only commute you have is from your couch to your home office? How do you fight the temptation of a sweet treat when they're all around you?

Working at home can be really harmful for our health. It can make us more sedentary, and a study by teams at the University of Loughborough and the University of Leicester found that sedentary people (such as those with desk jobs) were 90% more likely to die of cardiovascular disease, such as a heart-attack. They were also 149% more likely to have a non-fatal cardiovascular event, and 49% more likely to die of any cause.

Think on that.

That cushy sedentary lifestyle is literally killing you.

Hating exercise only makes this worse. But you don't have to be a gym-bunny to be fit and healthy. Here, we examine 9 simple tweaks that you can make to your daily routine that can help you be healthy if you work at home and hate exercise.

1. Buy a standing desk

Home-workers who use a computer all day might benefit from buying a standing desk A standing desk is a tall desk upon which is placed your computer; you stand to work for the majority of your time, sitting occasionally to rest. Once used by eccentric writers (Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway had them), standing-desks are now becoming popular among office workers due to their many health benefits, making it an excellent potential addition to your home office.

People with standing desks burn 50 calories more per hour than people with conventional desks, making it a simple method of tackling obesity. Standing more during the day also lowers your blood glucose levels, which reduces your risk of Type 2 Diabetes. It may also lower your overall mortality: a 2010 Australian study found that each hour spent sitting daily increased your mortality risk over the next seven years by 11%

2. Wear a pedometer

A pedometer is a simple, inexpensive machine (you can buy them for one or two pounds or dollars) that measures how many steps you take in a day. The aim is to take 10,000 steps a day. For many home-workers, that seems an impossible goal. However, wearing a pedometer makes you more aware of the number of steps you're taking. The aim is to gradually increase the number of steps so you are getting closer to 10,000 every day.

Author Katie Fford, writing for the Daily Mail, has an excellent recommendation for exercise-hating home-workers: marching on the spot while watching a favourite programme on the TV. Not only will that increase the number of steps on your pedometer and help you get fitter, but you can feel virtuous and find out what those pesky Real Housewives are up to.

3. Take a break

If you work at home, you probably have some other tasks that need doing. So take a break from the office and do them. Walk to your laundry-room and put on a load in the washing machine; head out into the garden and put some clothes on the line. Walking away from the office will get the heart pumping and help you burn calories.

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Similarly, at lunchtime, resist the temptation to shove a sandwich into your mouth while hunched over your desk. Make the most of working for yourself. Schedule a full forty-five minutes. Prepare something nutritious - it doesn't have to be difficult, a simple bowl of vegetable soup can be prepared in advance and heated up - and eat it slowly. Eat your lunch in a different room to your office, or - if it's a nice day - head out into the garden and soak up some Vitamin D.

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4. Walk the Dog

If you have a dog, schedule some time to walk them before you get to work, or in the evening when you finish work. Walking regularly improves your cardiovascular fitness, lowers your blood pressure, and gives you stronger muscles and bones. The presence of the dog is, not only the encouragement to walk daily (all dogs need walking once a day), but also  soothing and engaging, inspiring you to keep going where you might turn around and head home had you been walking alone.

So take your furry fitness machine for a walk: he'll love the sounds and smells, and you'll love seeing that tail wag with love.

5. Fill up the house with healthy food

If you're tempted to snack at the office, there's only a limited amount of storage space and a limited time where you can sneak snacks with no-one noticing. If you're tempted to sneak snacks when you're working at home, you can be surrounded by chocolate, cookies, fried goodies, and chips.

If you don't want your waistline expanding with your ambition, there's only one solution: you must remove all temptations from the house. Replace chocolate, fried snacks, and cookies with rice cakes, oatcakes, and crackers.

Also, make sure you drink enough. Sometimes, we mistake thirst for hunger.

6. Never work in PJs

One of the biggest temptations when we work at home is to wear our PJs. They're so comfy. And that's the problem. They have a nice, expanding waistband. That means that, should we have a not-so-nice expanding waistline, it's harder to notice. Always wear professional clothing when you work, even at home.

That will not only enable you to spot any weight-gain easily, it will also put you in a more businesslike frame of mind.

7. Make phone calls while pacing

If you have calls to make, make them while walking around your office. You'll get in extra steps without noticing them.

8. Change your diet

If you notice your waistline is still expanding since you've been working at home, try a new diet. The Mediterranean Diet is largely made up of vegetables, pulses, legumes, lean meat, oily fish. There is very little red meat, few sweets, and most fat is unsaturated. Following the Mediterranean Diet has shown, in UK and US populations, to have a 20% reduced risk of dying at any age; a reduced risk of becoming obese; and a reduced risk of developing heart disease, Type 2 Diabetes and high blood pressure.

It's also been found that following the Mediterranean Diet provides a balanced diet to lose excess weight.

If you're worried about weight, in addition to health and fitness, it might be worth investigating this affordable diet.

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9. Take up a hobby

Rather than collapse in front of the TV every night, why not take up a new hobby that gets you out of the house. It can be anything. It doesn't have to be particularly active, as long as it involves you going to another location once or twice a week: a dance class, a regular social meeting, a choir, an arts-and-crafts class...

Not only will you have a lot more fun than you would've had watching TV, you'll also get fitter without even noticing.

Conclusion

Not all of these methods are suitable for everyone. However, by adopting some of these methods, you could be on your way to a fuller, fitter life.