Burning calories can be a struggle but does exercising while you work to make it less stressful?
Being healthier has been more on our minds in the past few years than it has in the last 50 years, due to modern technology and leaps in medical discoveries. Losing weight and adding more years to our lives has proven to be the main focus of most people these days. We want to spend more time with our family, our friends, and also do the things that bring us joy in our lives. We focus on eating better, working out, and avoiding the terrible things that affect our health. Sure, it can be time-consuming or even hard at the time, but with the determination that humans have had since the dawn of our creation, there isn’t much that can stop us once we put our minds to something.
Most people will focus on one or two things when it comes to being overall healthier. Some people may focus more on the types of food they eat, their sleeping schedule, etc. There are also some people who focus on the types of workouts they do as well as how many calories they burn. For these people, burning as many calories as you can might be the quickest way to slim down. Of course, this all depends on how your body reacts to things. What works for one person may not always work for the next person. There will always be trial and error with whatever you try. That’s just how life is.
If you end up being the type of person who wants to focus on how many calories you burn, you should know more of what calories are beforehand. Per LiveScience.com, “A calorie is a unit of energy. Historically, scientists have defined "calorie" to mean a unit of energy or heat that could come from a variety of sources, such as coal or gas. In a nutritional sense, all types of food — whether they are fats, proteins, carbohydrates, or sugars — are important sources of calories, which people need to live and function.
How many calories a person needs in a day depends on the individual’s activity level and resting metabolic rate, which can be measured at a doctor or dietitian’s office, McDaniel said. “There’s conventional wisdom that men shouldn’t eat fewer than 1,500 calories and women 1,200 calories to ensure that they’re getting a balance of major nutrients and micronutrients. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provides general guidelines of calorie requirements for various ages and activity levels. A middle-aged moderately active female should consume 2,000 calories per day. A middle-aged moderately active male should consume 2,400 to 2,600 calories per day.”
They say knowledge is power, so knowing what you are up against will always be the best tool when you try to take something on. Not just calories, healthiness but also anything in your day-to-day life. Armed with knowledge, time, and persistence you will be able to jump the hurdles that stand between you and your goals. If burning calories is your goal, then knowing the hurdles that come up maybe another way for you to avoid stalling when you are trying to do your best with your calorie-burning workouts. If calories are the enemy, then you are the general leading your body into battle in order to accomplish victory. Just like the battles that have happened throughout history, this too will also need a strategy in order to truly own your calorie-burning goals.
Some people tend to want to go the extra mile when it comes to their calorie-burning workouts and try to get them done even while they work. Of course, due to the global pandemic, we have all been experiencing the last 2 years, many of us are working at home. This does make the goal of working out during your work hours pretty easier than it would if you were working back in your company’s office with a bunch of other people around you. Sure, you could always take a trip to the gym on your lunch break or go to your company’s provided workout space (if they have one available) but working at home and having the workout tools readily available will be much easier. Not many people can be a few feet from their home, workplace, and gym simultaneously, so why not take advantage of that?
If your home office is big enough, you could easily fit a treadmill or some weights to get your calorie-burning workout going. Usually, most people tend to combine calorie-burning workouts with strict cardio. Again, this really depends on you and what your body can handle. You want to challenge yourself of course, but you don’t want to push your body too hard right away. Gradually working up towards burning those calories with your workout will very much be worth it in the long run compared to going at it hard right away and feeling burnt out within a week.
There are also some people who focus more on standing workouts to burn calories. Per Healthline.com, “When you stand, you burn anywhere from 100 to 200 calories an hour. It all depends on your sex, age, height, and weight. Sitting, by comparison, only burns 60 to 130 calories an hour. Think about how fast that adds up! You could burn anywhere from 120 to 210 more calories just by swapping 3 hours of sitting for standing. While this may not help you lose a significant amount of weight, it can certainly help you maintain your current weight and reduce certain health risks.” Some people may look at this as an opportunity to try standing more while they workout, or even during their day-to-day. Although standing doesn’t make a huge difference in weight loss, it does offer some other advantages. This is even more true with the advance we have thanks to modern technology.
Surprisingly some studies throughout the years have shown researchers that standing burns an extra 0.15 total calories in just a minute. This of course is compared to what you would burn while just sitting, which is much more than you would get just by sitting. Granted just by standing more, you are lowering your risks for certain health conditions such as:
• Obesity
• Diabetes
• Heart Disease
• Cancer
There isn’t a person in the world who wouldn’t tell you that they would prefer to avoid one or all these terrible health situations. Obesity has been the biggest thing to health in the last few years, hence the reason people are looking to find better ways to burn calories and be healthier for the rest of their lives. Knowing is of course half the battle at times. As long as you’re willing to learn and adapt more you will have more success.
Per WebMD.com, “If you’re used to sitting at a desk all day, it’s important to move gradually to standing more. If you work a job where you sit at a desk all day, a standing desk makes it so you can continue working while you stand. If you go from sitting to standing all day at once, you may have back, leg, or foot pain. Instead, ease into standing by starting with 30 minutes to 60 minutes of standing at a time.
Take frequent breaks to sit down. If it helps, set a timer to remind you to stand up at a certain time of day. You may find that some tasks are easier to do when you’re seated. Plan your time around which responsibilities you do better with standing or sitting.
If you want to burn more calories, look at ways you can add activity to your day. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that you spend at least 150 minutes each week doing moderate exercise. This averages 30 minutes of activity each day for five days. If you prefer a more intense activity like running, you should aim for 75 minutes of activity per week. This averages 15 minutes of activity for five days a week.”
If you are that kind of person who just wants to go the extra mile and burn calories at work, you are in luck. There are ways you can do this. Some people do leg lift exercises, wear ankle weights all day long, or even do chair aerobics (yes that is a thing that people do). The ability to multitask is not a skill most people can accomplish. Sure, our bodies are technically the ultimate multitasker, there is a time when we need to use a bit of our powerful mental focus to control some of the multitasking opportunities to burn calories while we work. Honestly, the master multitaskers are of course parents. You almost need to rewire your brain when you become a parent to grow the ability to multitask. Now, if you aren’t a parent there are still ways that you can try to build your multi-tasking muscle to help you work and burn calories.
The best way to do so is to try to give yourself 3 tasks to do at the same time. Try writing, drinking water, and listening to music simultaneously. There are most people out there who are unable to think let alone work while trying to listen to music, but this is a really great way in order to push your multitasking skills. It is all about listening to your subconscious and using your main focus towards the task at hand. Over time it becomes much easier than you think. If you are feeling comfortable with multitasking and ready to take on burning more calories while you work, you can try an ergonomic fitness chair instead of the garden variety desk chair.
One choice you can make is FlexiSpot’s Sit2Go 2-in-1 Fitness Chair. This fitness chair is a super comfortable sitting experience, which could be a perfect alternative to your regular desk chair. It has breathable mesh in the backrest that ensures not only comfort but also stability. This is also great for improving productivity. It cycles quietly and smoothly so it won’t disturb your work or co-workers if you are still working in an office. This is even better for productivity if you are working from home.
The FlexiSpot Sit2Go 2-in-1 Fitness Chair is also the ideal way to ease into a new or old fitness routine with light cycling. This can be done anytime and anywhere, even while enjoying a work break or other activities during the weekend. You will get all the benefits of a professional exercise bike with adjustable resistance levels that let you choose your calorie-burning challenge and even has a calorie tracker built into the fitness chair.
There are certainly advantages of having something like this to help you burn calories on the daily grind of a 9-5 workweek. Of course, you don’t want this to be your main source of calorie burning. Be sure to also include ways to burn calories for your workout days and make sure you have calorie-burning workouts that you can alternate from throughout the week. Some people tend to do a couple of workouts one day, then mix them with two different ones in order to keep things fresh and hit their goals of burning calories.
The best thing to take away from all of this is that while burning calories and being healthy may seem like a struggle at first, you have many options out there for you to ease into a better routine for your life. You get many more years with the people you love, better mental focus, and overall better health that will keep you feeling younger throughout the rest of your life. With anything, you just want to take it one step at a time and remember that you can be your own worst enemy, or your best supporter during this. Just close your eyes, take a deep breath, and remember you are in control of your destiny.
