8 Weight Loss Roadblocks That you May Encounter at Workplace

by varsha - February 19, 2021

When you spend a majority of the day at your workplace, sitting for long hours at the desk without moving, earning your bread and butter (make sure to pick healthy versions), you would also have to work extra hard to lose weight and constantly fight temptations that may add to the existing pounds, not to mention unlimited cups of tea and coffee that don’t get counted! It’s important to overcome physical and emotional barriers if you are trying to lose weight, but environmental barriers play a significant role too, more so at workplace where you have limited access to healthy food and hardly get a chance to get on your feet. Peer pressure (when everyone is having a pizza break) and work-related stress add to a dieter’s woes and make losing weight a tough battle. Bringing in little changes to your work environment while trying to lose weight will make things easier and you would look and feel better, and healthy! After all, a healthy employee is a productive employee! So, that’s why it’s important to remove all the roadblocks that you may encounter at workplace to lose weight get a healthier and lighter version of yourself.

1. Sedentary Lifestyle: It’s extremely difficult to lose weight with a sedentary lifestyle where you sit in front of the computer for long hours, with little to absolutely no physical activity. As we all know, one needs to burn more calories than one consumes, and if you are not doing any kind of physical activity, the calories get converted to fat rather effortlessly. So, do not sit idle before the laptop/computer, because a simple activity, such as fidgeting legs can help you burn calories! Yes, apparently, people who fidget their legs through the day can burn significantly more calories than people who are standing still! So, make use of working hours and fidget those legs to lose up to 300 calories in a day! Also, practicing NEAT activities (non-exercise activity thermogenesis), such as squatting on the floor to lift something up, walking while talking on the phone, would help to burn some amount of calories and these bits of calories spent here and there, add up to a considerable amount when you are trying to lose weight. Read more about how you can include NEAT activities in your daily life here.
2. High Stress Levels: Stress can affect weight gain in many ways – from influencing poor food choices to triggering emotional eating, overeating, to increasing cortisol hormone which leads to fat storage and sugar cravings. In fact, stress eating is a major roadblock in anyone’s weight loss journey, more so if it’s work related. Practice deep breathing, take small breaks, and meditate for a few minutes when you feel too stressed out at work.
3. You are Mostly Ordering from Outside: With limited access to healthy food at workplace, you might be ordering food from outside or eating from the office canteen, all of which may be low in nutrition and high on empty calories, adding to extra pounds. Meal prepping on your days off is a great way to avoid ordering food from outside. Meal prepping promotes the habit of healthy eating and saves a lot of time during hectic weekdays where there is little time to cook homemade food. Preparing batches of healthy food and storing them up in the fridge, that would last for most days in the week will save a lot of money, and cut down loads of calories that make their way through ordered foods from restaurants and eateries.
4. Unhealthy Eating Habits: Nibbling on cookies, doughnuts and other goodies, not to mention frequent snacking, may not seem much in terms of calories, but they do contribute to a lot of unhealthy calories through high amounts of sugar, sodium, and made majorly of refined grains. Switch to Rati Beauty weight loss diets on Rati Beauty app to find ways to practice healthy eating and lose weight at the same time.
5. Limited Exposure to Sunlight: Working in erratic shifts and getting little opportunity to step out and get some precious vitamin D from the sun can affect your weight loss goals because vitamin D deficiency can lead to weight gain and hormonal imbalance (leptin, cortisol, calcitrol, parathyroid to name a few). In fact, with adequate level of vitamin D in your body, it’s much more easier to lose belly fat too.
6. Not Telling Colleagues you are on a Diet: Not telling people around you, especially co-workers that you are on a weight loss diet, can actually sabotage your goals! If you want to keep it a secret, you would have to find a million other reasons to refuse unlimited number of doughnuts, sweets, and other treats coming your way. There are more diet saboteurs lurking around in your office than you think and it would do a great deal of good to tell all of them that you are trying to lose weight.
7. Taking Elevator instead of Stairs: Making that all-important decision of abandoning the elevator and making your way to the office through stairs can help you a great deal to burn extra calories! Climbing two to three flight of stairs is an amazing exercise and can lower stress, get your heart pumping, and leave you energized to motor through rest of the day, apart from burning off many calories.
8. Lazy Weekends Add to Weight Gain: Getting sedentary and cocooning on the couch on Saturday and Sunday and eating your heart out on these days can completely jeopardize your weight loss efforts. If you have stuck to your diet throughout the week, but stretch the cheat meal into a cheat weekend, you are undoing a week’s worth of effort. Do practice mindful eating during weekends and keep a tabs on calorie intake even while socializing or getting together with friends. Most importantly, keep “cheat meal” as a single time indulgence, avoid stretching it into a two-day affair.

Avoid these roadblocks at workplace to lose extra weight and get healthy and fit.