Not Just a Man's World

I have a desk job.  I am, unfortunately, also a bit too conscientious about my desk job.  As a result, if I’m engrossed in something I can easily find myself getting through the entire day without leaving my chair.  Or at least, I used to.

Over the next four posts I’m going to share with you 15 methods I’ve developed to ensure that even by the end of a long and difficult day, I can still manage a session of moving heavy weights about at the end of it.  And let’s face it, nearly all of us spend more time sat in a chair than is good for us.

1. Use a couple of sports bottles for water
   I’m a fanatic when it comes to sports bottles.  I used to use a plastic cup and endlessly refill it from a big plastic bottle.  The problem?  You have two items to carry if you want to take a drink to an internal meeting and then there’s always the risk of knocking the cup over and spending 15 minutes mopping up the desk. The benefits of sports bottles for work are indisputable.  You can have 1.5 litres of water on your desk in two sports bottles without attracting comments from everyone “That’s an enormous bottle of water.  Do you really drink all that in a day?”  If you need to dash to an internal meeting you can grab the bottle and you’ve got it with you.  And I find I can drink a huge quantity of water with ease.
2. Drink more than you think you need
   I drink for two purposes.  The first is the obvious reason that I need the water.  If you don’t keep well-hydrated then you will struggle with exercise later on in the day. However, I’ve also found that by drinking a lot of water during the day at work (I would usually get through 4 litres while at the office) I am forced to get up from my desk.  I have to go to the toilet.  Not so often that it disrupts meetings, but at least 4 times in a day.  So if nothing else, I get the exercise and get away from my desk for a moment.
3. Keep your food on your desk
   You would think that after point 2, I would be advocating keeping your lunch as far away from you as possible to give yourself the walk, but I find that if I keep my lunch in the fridge at work and I’m busy, I forget to fetch it and eat it until it is too late.  And if I let myself go hungry for too long, I end up unable to squeeze out any hard reps in the gym that evening. So these days I keep all my food on my desk in easy reach.  No matter how busy I am I can stretch over, open up a lunchbox, and start snacking.  I’ve even changed my lunch so that it is all in finger-food pieces, removing the need for cutlery (I’d hate to do one of those germ-tests on my keyboard).  I eat eggs at lunchtime and a tuna dish mid-afternoon and so far I haven’t got ill, so I wouldn’t worry too much about keeping stuff out of the fridge for a half day unless you work in a tropical environment.
4. Pack your lunch and snacks into multiple pots
   This is another handy way to ensure you spread your meals evenly across the day.  Have them packaged up as separate meals.  I have a portion of my very delicious tuna coleslaw split into two small pots and eat one mid-morning and one mid-afternoon. It makes it as easy as possible for me to get my nutrition in without involving my brain, which is otherwise occupied during a working day.

That’s it for my food and drink tips.  Part two is mini office workouts!

Related posts:

1. 15 Ways to Survive a Desk Job – Part 4 (general survival)
2. 15 Ways to Survive a Desk Job – Part 2 (workouts)
3. 15 Ways to Survive a Desk Job – Part 3 (clothing)
4. Paleo recipes: ginger and lemon drink