While working from home has its many perks—you get to avoid standstill traffic, you can sleep in a little longer, and you can lounge around in your pajamas all day if you want (not recommended) there is another advantage to working from home that most other look: a healthier lifestyle. Eating right and monitoring your waistline is something really hard to do at your typical 9 -to -5 job— you sit on your bottom for 8 hours a day, co-workers coerce you on a daily basis to join them for lunch at the local fast food restaurant across the street and then for a couple of beers at happy hour after work. Not to mention you come home too exhausted to go the gym after work. My first year at my stable in-office job, I gained 15 pounds. But I lost it as soon as I started working from the confinements of my own home. To learn how I did it and how you can keep your health in check as well, continue reading below.
Opt for Non-Traditional Office Furniture
One of the easiest ways to help you stay fit and strengthen your core with little effort is to switch out your office chair for an exercise yoga ball. It might seem a little silly to use one around your co-workers, but if you’re working at home it’s worth giving it a shot. With the exercise ball, you’re constantly using your stomach muscles to keep your balance, so you’re more active than when sitting in a traditional office chair. While a regular exercise ball will do, if you need a bit more back support there are specially designed exercise balance ball chairs available for purchase.
Download Exercise Apps
Even with the exercise ball, you should definitely look into some simple desktop exercises—moves that you can do while sitting at your desk. Like with the exercise ball, it’s easier to do leg and arm exercises at home instead of at the office since you’re less of a distraction to everyone. While you can easily Google some chair and desk exercises, you can also download some apps like DeskFit App so that you can have a virtual trainer teach you a set of different moves everyday with assisting pictures. Try to create a routine and set an alarm on your phone so you can do them every day—this can also serve as a really productive break.
Have the Right Foods Stacked in Your Fridge/ Pantry
Working from home also makes it easier to make better and healthier food choices when it comes to breakfast and lunch. This could be a risky move however if you give yourself access to salty and sugar snacks like candy, chips and soda. The best way to avoid unhealthy foods is just to not buy them and toss out the unhealthy items you already have in your fridge and pantry. Instead, you should replace them with items that are good for you and will give you the proper energy you need to complete all of your daily tasks such as whole grains, water based-soups, fruits and veggies high in calcium, plain Greek yogurt, and drinks lots of water. Aim for 8 glasses a day. And if you have to get up and use to restroom every 10 minutes that’s fine too—there’s no boss to ask you what’s wrong with your bladder.
Squeeze in Some Exercise Routine
You can cut two hours of your regular commute simply by working from home. It’s important however that you use that extra time to fit in some exercise. Invest in a gym membership, workout videos, or do some jogging around your neighborhood before or after work; the summer is quickly approaching so you can consider doing a few laps in the pool too. Since you’re free to make your own schedule, you can go to the gym during your lunch break as well. As long as you get some sort of activity in 3 to 4 days a week, you’ll be in the best shape possible.
This is a guest post by Eliza Morgan who is a full time blogger. She specializes in writing about business credit cards. You can reach her at: elizamorgan856 at gmail dot com.
Related articles
- How Do You Sit Comfortably and Ergonomically on a Budget? [Ask The Readers] (lifehacker.com)
- Tips on work from home (casualphotos.wordpress.com)
Do you need help with Starting A Wordpress Site?
Then...use Thesis just like the pros around. Even if you are not a pro, Thesis has a great supporting community and forum to help you with questions on how to use Thesis. Finally, if you need access to resources that I use for my business online, check out my resources page. You will find goodies and gems that might help you as well.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Blogs are really interesting especially when you like what you blog. Nice post by the way!