Are You a Desk Potato?

by Rhonda

Greetings,

It’s tough to watch our weight when we are chained at a desk all day. When I worked in an office environment, people bring in all kinds of goodies, like homemade coffee cake and sugary donuts from the local donut shop. There’s always bowls of candy floating around and I personally kept an emergency bag of mini chocolate bars in my desk. My friend would keep a different version and we’d swap them with each other.

When I started working from home, I thought that it would be easier to control what I eat. Boy was I wrong. If anything, things got worse. When you work at an office, your hours are more structured. You usually get 2 breaks and an hour for lunch, and then at 5 or 6, depending on the workload, you get up and go home. When you work from your home, you usually end up working much longer hours. For one thing, there’s no commute to prepare for, so you’re at your desk earlier. For another, if there’s much work to be done and you’re a workaholic like me, it’s easy to sit at your desk until 7 or 8, because you’ve taken on a greater workload and want to get it all done.

When I worked in an office environment, I usually got up from my desk a lot, to go to the fax machine, or photocopy room, or to discuss a file with another coworker. I’d often use my lunch hour to get out and run errands, so that I wouldn’t have to do them on the way home.

Now that I work in my home office, the fax and printer are right next to me, so I don’t have to get up. There’s no coworkers to talk to, just my cats, and I get up a lot less. The refrigerator is close by and since there’s no structured break schedule, I can pay a visit to graze whenever I feel like it.

I was reading an article in the October issue of Self Magazine. It was dedicated to desk potatoes, be they constantly on the run, or sitting at their home offices. There were a lot of good tips in the article, too many to address here, but among them was to keep a pack of sugar free gum ready, to alleviate cravings for sweets. Another was to find 30 minutes to exercise and drink a glass of water before meals. As the week goes on, I will address all of the tips given in this great article. In the meantime, today’s affirmation is, I will only eat what is good for me. Say it 10 times and mean it. Peace - Rhonda