Creative Movement

This week has been a little bit crazy for me. Due to a home improvement project that's been rescheduled once and delayed twice on account of the weather, I've worked from home three out of five days. The upside to this is that I've gotten a great deal accomplished. I'm always amazed by the speed at which I can complete a project with no interruptions! The downsides, however, are twofold. First, I miss the daily personal interaction I have with my co-workers--I'm one of the lucky few who can genuinely say I love the people I work with. Second, I'm having to work a lot harder to get my daily steps in.

See, when I'm at work, it's easy to get my minimum of 10,000 steps a day in. It takes effort, of course. I take the long way around the building to refill my water bottle. I go to the bathroom located the furthest away from my desk. I take the roundabout route, which forces me to climb the stairs to meeting rooms, etc. And, usually, I've accumulated between 4,000 and 5,000 steps by the time I go home in the evening. While this might not sound like a lot, consider how few steps I'd be getting I weren't making such a conscious effort!

You may have figured this out by now, but I have a desk job...a sit on your butt all day and do nothing but type and talk on the phone kind of desk job. Exercise, or movement of any kind, does not happen without a concerted effort. This is exactly why I started wearing a pedometer a few months ago. You can imagine my shock when I discovered, after a typical day in the office, that I'd walked just 1,500 steps over the course of the entire work day! Yep. A concerted effort was exactly what was needed!

Since then, I've been involved in a new routine. A few of my coworkers find my efforts humorous, and they do require a bit more time. Still others wonder what in the heck I'm doing, as they see me looping the building, and in places far from my desk. But, really, what's an extra 30 seconds here and there...besides an extra 200-300 steps!?

So, anyway, I've been working from home for the last few days. And the only place I get less steps in per day than the office is my home office. The bathroom is literally just a few paces away, and I find I need to get up and move less, over all. So I came up with a plan this week: each time I get up to use the bathroom (which is frequently, given my propensity for drinking around 100 oz. a day), I also take the opportunity to run down to my basement, hop on the elliptical machine or the treadmill for two to three minutes, and then come back upstairs to resume my work. The plan is working perfectly, and is helping me achieve the same 4,000-5,000 steps I would normally be taking if I were at work, versus home.

There's no doubt, weight loss and maintenance definitely force us to think and do things a bit more creatively. What tips and tricks do you rely on to keep you on track each day?