The Threat of the Fridge
It's hard to stay in shape when your office is ten feet from your pantry. How do you create good health and fitness habits when working from home?

By Astrid Van Den Broek
PROFIT-X

Noticing any extra pinches of inches since you've started working from home?

Believe it or not, darting from cubicle to cubicle or hustling up and down stairs in your old office were actually calorie-burning activities. But in a home office where your commute involves maybe a flight of stairs, less movement encourages those once-burned calories to add up — not to mention the short stroll from your desk to the fridge.

So how do you create good health and fitness habits when working from home? Take a lesson from Janice Hutton, certification director with Markham, Ont.-based Canadian Association of Fitness Professionals. "I take a structured break, and even if it's just a case of going for a 15-min. walk, I try to do that everyday," says Hutton, who works from her home in St. Catharines, Ont. Hutton suggests other ways of slipping in fitness, such as finding a series of five exercises to do in those breaks. It can be as simple as a walk or some stretching, but if you're looking for cardiovascular or toning benefits, you could try getting out of your chair 15 times, or doing push ups against your desk. Or even use that commute — run up and down the stairs a few times. "You almost have to treat it like an office environment and maybe even walk around, do a couple of laps around the house," says Hutton, stressing the goal is to get the blood pumping.

Or, you could incorporate fitness right into your work by replacing your chair with an oversized fitness ball, available at sporting goods stores. Even if you use it for just a few hours, it can improve your health by making your posture come from your muscles rather than the chair's back support.

Richard Cotton, vice-president and chief exercise physiologist of Salt Lake City, Utah-based First Fitness, Inc., recommends scheduling fitness sessions as appointments. "Give yourself the same respect in keeping appointments as you do with everyone else," he says. Also, use an exercise session as a conscious ending to your work day, replacing the commute you used to have.

As far as eating better, use this as a chance to prepare healthy food rather than running out for the junk. Jason Gee, director of Toronto-based Personal Fitness Consulting, suggests cooking extra amounts of good-for-you food such as vegetables or rice. That way, when you go to make yourself a quick lunch, the fridge is stocked with healthy options. Gee also says the easiest way to avoid snacking on chips or crackers is simple: keep junk out of the house, or at least, limit the amounts you buy.

Use this as a chance to improve that coffee-and-doughnut-riddled diet. "I have an opportunity to eat better than the average person," says Hutton. "The average person is so tempted by outside restaurants, and you have to go out for lunch or breaks. I take it as an opportunity to have better nutritional habits."