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It’s Friday! As we look forward to our feasts over the weekends, what about our New Year’s Resolution? Aww…We all know getting regular exercise, having enough sleep and maintaining a healthy diet are all keys to losing weight. What people do not realise or find out is how they grow fat in the first place. Nip in the bud man.
Skipping breakfast
Let’s start with breakfast. If you think by skipping breakfast, you will eat lesser and in turn meaning you won’t put on weight, it’s totally wrong! When you skip breakfast, you will likely feel so damn hungry that you eat more than you really need to at lunch. Instead, kickstart your day with a nutritious, filling breakfast that will carry you through to lunch. A nutritious meal will be food like wholemeal toast with eggs or beans. The protein will keep the hunger away and provide you the necessary energy.
Heavy lunch
The knock-on effect of skipping breakfast. Do you usually feel like you overeat during lunch? Feel sleepy after lunch? I have the sneaky feeling that we are more similar to snakes than we imagined. Pythons go motionless after their meals as they digest the food and we can see the similarities after a heavy lunch. Can’t move, almost exploding, feel sleepy. Enough said. Get healthier lunch choices from sushi to salad or wholegrain sandwiches. Have some protein to fill you up more if greens don’t seem filling enough.
Tea break
Tea breaks are good bonding sessions. But it is also during these sessions that you consume the iced kopis and teh iced. If you think by avoiding these drinks and getting can drinks instead, it’s about the same. With an average of 150 to 200 calories per bottle, these sugary drinks won’t do your waistline any favours.
Office Couch potato
If you are one of those people who barely leave your seat once you walk into the office, you might want to rethink and start walking around. Getting stuck in the same position for long periods of time, potentially leads to poor blood circulation. This causes unnecessary fluid retention and water weight to be stored in the lower half of your body. In addition, poor blood circulation impairs your metabolism making it harder to burn off fat and easy to get fat. This is also partly why people feel tired and restless after a long day at work. So, get out for lunch, walk around in the office. As easy as it may be to eat lunch at your desk and work straight through, it’s always a good idea to get out for some fresh air and a little walk. Find yourself a walking buddy and meet up for lunchtime outings. Even better would be to go to a gym or yoga class – you’ll come back to the office feeling energised and refreshed.
Snacking
Do we really need to say more about snacking while working?
Now, going back to the thought about today being a Friday and the sumptuous treats over the weekend…I guess we should just enjoy our ‘last’ weekend of feasting and start correcting these how-to-grow-fat habits next Monday.
P.S.: And that was the sixth way we grow fat at work. Procrastination.