We belong to a generation where we spend most of the precious hours of the day glued to our office chairs and clicking away on our laptops. Who has the time to exercise? It is difficult to squeeze in your exercise schedule especially if you have erratic working hours – both before and after office. Visiting the gym is quite demanding and not always possible. And after being mentally exhausted at work, no one is prepared to physically exhaust themselves after work (there are exceptions though) and hence, lethargy sets in.

So, if you are wondering how to lose weight with a busy schedule, you have come to the right place. Don’t be discouraged, you can also make use of your office hours and get fitter while sitting at your desk or anywhere in the office.   

Here Are Some Simple Exercises that You Can Try at Work

Take the Stairs: Ditch the elevators and instead elevate your heart rate. Take the flight of stairs and for a real leg-burn skip a step and accelerate on your speed. By raising our heart rate, climbing stairs helps protect against high blood pressure, weight gain and clogged arteries. It also improves strength, bone density and muscle tone. This is especially important for women in sedentary office jobs as they have a significantly higher osteoporosis risk than men.

Seat Squeeze: You can keep this exercise under the wraps and while you are talking to your colleague sitting next to you, he or she will be totally unaware that you are silently working on your glutes. The movement of a butt clench is small, it’s shrinking the size of your buttocks inwards from the sides. Keep your legs relaxed and tense only your butts. Hold the clench for five to 10 seconds and then relax. Do two sets of 30 repetitions and as muscle strength improves, increase the length of time you hold each clench.

Seated Leg Raiser: Yet again, this exercise will hardly be noticeable underneath the desk. Sit upright, straighten one or both legs and hold in place for five or more seconds. Slowly lower the legs back to the ground without touching your feet on the ground. Repeat for 15 repetitions. For added weight, you can loop your handbag or any other weights at your disposal, over the ankle.

Printer Leg Raises: Too tired of sitting at one place? Move around and excuse yourself to get some print outs. While the prints are getting done, you can hold your printer and start with leg raises. Stretch your hamstrings and feel the calf muscles burn. Do this exercise 20 times (or till your prints are done) and repeat two sets.

Walk Around: Do not directly get back to your seats immediately after your lunch. Take a breather and walk around for 10 minutes, this will help in digesting your food. Strolling around in the office is highly underrated. Move around (without disturbing anyone, of course) and catch up with your employees. Instead of sending lazy emails or dialling extensions to your boss, put in some face time.

While exercise plays an important role in losing weight, diet does as well. Make it a point to not binge on unhealthy snacks if you are bored at work. Keep drinking water and get down your office building and hydrate yourself by drinking a healthy juice or buttermilk, especially now that summers have set it. Stock up on healthy snacks like dry fruits, whole-grain nutritious bars, yogurt or some veggies like cucumber and carrots. You can munch on them any time during your office hours. So, avoid making excuses and get fit with these simple exercises that you can perform during your work hours.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 16, 2018 12:25 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).