Maintaining body weight at work, under stress: nutrition, sleep, exercise

Many patients note that they have gained excess body weight in a few years and under­stand the impor­tance of weight loss. But the hec­tic work sched­ule seems to leave no room for diet and health care at all. It is impor­tant to under­stand that for peo­ple who are stressed and over­worked, it is even more impor­tant to con­trol their diet, not deprive them­selves of prop­er sleep and allo­cate time for phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. This will help keep your body weight under con­trol. But how to put it into prac­tice?

Busy schedule and stress

If life is a series of plan­ning meet­ings, meet­ings, and the sched­ule is irreg­u­lar, the body is con­stant­ly exposed to stress, it is impor­tant to mon­i­tor your health and con­trol body weight. Under such con­di­tions, the risk of obe­si­ty is increased. When the work sched­ule is con­stant, there are days off and hol­i­days, it is much eas­i­er to mon­i­tor body weight and deal with stress, which neg­a­tive­ly affects health in gen­er­al and weight in par­tic­u­lar. If the sched­ule is irreg­u­lar, there are prob­lems in the fam­i­ly or at work, you need to com­plete sev­er­al tasks at once every day, and there are few days off, stress affects much more, ini­ti­at­ing meta­bol­ic changes that pre­dis­pose to weight gain.

It is impor­tant to devel­op a stress man­age­ment and weight man­age­ment plan for your­self that includes prop­er nutri­tion and exer­cise. Although it is not easy, it is quite pos­si­ble to set aside some time for your own health.

There are some sim­ple tips to fit health care and weight loss into your rou­tine, no mat­ter how busy your sched­ule is.

Physical activity for metabolism

For active burn­ing of fats by the body, oxy­gen is need­ed, it allows the cells to active­ly break down nutri­ents with the for­ma­tion of ener­gy. To acti­vate the metab­o­lism, you need a healthy diet and dai­ly phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, what­ev­er it may be. Accord­ing to a study pub­lished in the Inter­na­tion­al Jour­nal of Work­place Health Man­age­ment, peo­ple are much more pro­duc­tive on days when they get even a lit­tle exer­cise. A short ses­sion of exer­cise improves mood, cog­ni­tion, con­cen­tra­tion and increas­es ener­gy lev­els. There­fore, 10–15 min­utes of exer­cise before work, a walk to the office or a warm-up dur­ing a work break is already a phys­i­cal activ­i­ty that will help in the fight against excess weight.

It is impor­tant not to be lazy and not look for excus­es for your­self, using every free minute to stretch your mus­cles, relieve accu­mu­lat­ed ten­sion. For most peo­ple, prop­er sleep and exer­cise are the main things to make time for in a busy sched­ule.

Weight control: little is better than nothing at all

Most peo­ple have an all-or-noth­ing prin­ci­ple about dietary changes and exer­cise need­ed to con­trol body weight. But experts say it’s bet­ter to prac­tice par­tial health care and weight loss than not doing any­thing because of hard work. If it is not pos­si­ble to orga­nize a healthy and prop­er diet for lunch, let at least break­fasts at home, before work, and din­ners remain healthy.

The same goes for exer­cise. Sure, work­ing out at the gym can be the best option to keep your body weight sta­ble, but doing a 20-minute work­out at home is def­i­nite­ly bet­ter than cut­ting out entire­ly.

You can’t deprive yourself of good sleep.

Lack of sleep dis­rupts the ade­qua­cy of deci­sion-mak­ing in the brain, reduces per­for­mance and reac­tion. In addi­tion, appetite con­trol is reduced, which forms a patho­log­i­cal crav­ing for food, more­over, high-calo­rie and dense, in order to receive a kind of “reward” for lack of sleep and stress expe­ri­enced by the body. In oth­er words, peo­ple whose sleep is inad­e­quate or too lim­it­ed in time are more like­ly to eat stress and gain weight.

In addi­tion, stud­ies show that sleep qual­i­ty and dura­tion are close­ly relat­ed to exer­cise tol­er­ance. Even when the sched­ule is busy and there is a lot to do, it is impor­tant to give your­self at least sev­en to nine hours of sleep. This will help you man­age stress bet­ter and stick to your healthy eat­ing habits.

Diet changes and motivation

It is impor­tant to choose the right moti­va­tion to con­trol and reduce weight. It is nec­es­sary to clear­ly under­stand why you need to lose weight and main­tain it with­in the giv­en num­bers, this will help in dai­ly mon­i­tor­ing of nutri­tion.

If there is no time to cook in the evening, you should take care in advance on the week­end that the food is as sim­ple and healthy as pos­si­ble dur­ing the week, there is no temp­ta­tion to go to the near­est cafe or super­mar­ket for fast food or con­ve­nience foods. In busy work and busy sched­ules, healthy eat­ing can be made eas­i­er through plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion. It is rec­om­mend­ed to ded­i­cate one day a week to prepar­ing healthy meals and snacks, which can then be used as the basis of din­ners or break­fasts. Freez­ing food in por­tions, cook­ing con­ve­nience foods, fresh veg­eta­bles and fruits in the refrig­er­a­tor will help make eat­ing health­i­er.

Healthy and healthy snacks to take with you. If a per­son spends a lot of time in the office or in the car, you can use nuts and fruits, veg­eta­bles, or whole grain bread. They will help to cope with hunger, if there is no way to eat nor­mal­ly.

Proper food intake

To con­trol the amount of food con­sumed, you need to give up extra­ne­ous mat­ters dur­ing lunch or din­ner, focus­ing on the very process of eat­ing. Eat­ing with the TV on or smart­phone in hand hin­ders the brain’s abil­i­ty to effec­tive­ly mea­sure how much food has been eat­en. A 2015 study pub­lished in the Jour­nal of Health Psy­chol­o­gy found that sim­ply walk­ing while eat­ing makes you eat more food than you need. Research in the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Clin­i­cal Nutri­tion shows that eat­ing in front of a com­put­er screen has the same effect.

There­fore, it is worth set­ting aside time for your­self to eat so that noth­ing dis­tracts from eat­ing. You need to chew food slow­ly, savor­ing every bite. It will take a few min­utes longer, but dur­ing the day you won’t feel hun­gry as quick­ly.