Calling all Desk Jobbers -- Move more frequently challenge! March 2012 page

[activia]

OK I've had it. This March I need to lose some extra body fat... I need to move more. My current load is: 30 min walk daily, one lifting day weekly, kickboxing weekly, and one 1-2 hour hike weekly..

I sit on my ass all day at work. I keep meaning to tell myself to get up every hour and do something and I'm just too lazy. I dont mean just walk to the bathroom. I mean 3 - 5 mins of exercise at least.. be it jumping jacks, situps, air punches, wall squats, planks, walking up a hill, going up and down the stairs.. something! The goal is to do this 6 times a day(since every hour might not be feasible).

In addition, I've been meaning to get my butt outside and walk/light jog/bike riding for 15-20 min every morning and every night. You can certainly involve the kids/spouse/dog and make some fun out of it! This will add an additional hour every day of movement. If its raining ware a rain jacket, or change. If its snowing wear boots and snowpants. If its freezing wear boots/snowpants/sweatshirt/face mask..whatever it takes to get your bum outside. Just think if you have a dog...that dog needs to go out no matter the weather (I happen to have a dog). If you dont have time in the morning or night, then just double one or the other... Minimum 30 min of additional walking, on top of that 30 min walk I hope you all already do at lunch

Finally that brings us to after work. Once we walk in the door, no sitting on our butts watching TV for 2 hours (come on I know some of you do that)! Cooking/cleaning/chores/playing with kids/dogs/showering... this all takes some decent movement. So thats acceptable. If you want to watch tv, thats OK too.. just make sure you are not sitting. Stand, do situps, pushups, air squats, walk in place...something at least every commercial break. If you are taking your leisure time on your computer.. then ever 15 min do the commercial break routine.

That gives us some solid movement throughout the day.

I need support and accountability, who is in? If you want to start with something less, that is fine too, just say your goals and let's get this started

[Meegeek]

I have the same problem with my job, at a desk most of the day. Here are some of the things I have been doing;
- Stand up meetings whenever I have to go into another office
- Our office is on the 3rd floor and the bathroom is down the all. There are 3 sets of stairs in the building. When nature calls, I go down on set, up another, do my business, then down a set, and up another. In all each trip is 12 flights of stairs up and 12 down.
- Walks at lunch, took about a week of exploring to get a good course set up for a 3 km, 30 minute walk. Have been fighting weather though. Hard to sit for 4 more hours at your desk when you got wet walking at lunch.
- Eat lunch later then the crowd. Not sure why but if you eat at your desk as I do, most folks will leave you alone if it is later.
- I have been threatening to walk to work (live 4 miles away) for sometime. Finally did it today. There are so many variations on this though. Drive halfway and park, walk the rest. Public transport then walk.
- Park as far away as you can from your office.

That is all I got for now...but have lately been trying to come up with other ideas for those of us chained to a desk.

[activia]

- Stand up meetings whenever I have to go into another office.

We have a daily SCRUM which is standup for 10 min. People loathe standing for this meeting... and if you stand in other meetings people do not like it

- Our office is on the 3rd floor and the bathroom is down the all. There are 3 sets of stairs in the building. When nature calls, I go down on set, up another, do my business, then down a set, and up another. In all each trip is 12 flights of stairs up and 12 down.
.

I work in a small office, no stairs..

- Walks at lunch, took about a week of exploring to get a good course set up for a 3 km, 30 minute walk. Have been fighting weather though. Hard to sit for 4 more hours at your desk when you got wet walking at lunch.

Been doing this and its been great for socializing as well. I usually walk with different people... we've been lucky with the weather it hasn't rained that often at lunch. But I hear ya getting wet at work is not doable.

- Eat lunch later then the crowd. Not sure why but if you eat at your desk as I do, most folks will leave you alone if it is later.

Eh I like to socialize during lunch..

- I have been threatening to walk to work (live 4 miles away) for sometime. Finally did it today. There are so many variations on this though. Drive halfway and park, walk the rest. Public transport then walk.

I live 35 miles from work

- Park as far away as you can from your office.

Eh I'd rather walk at home with the dog before/after work then in the office parking lot to be honest..but I can see this working

That is all I got for now...but have lately been trying to come up with other ideas for those of us chained to a desk.

Keep them coming! Do you have any specific goals that you want to commit to for this challenge?

[Dracil]

Man, scrum. It's supposed to be standing, but everyone sits here, and then scrum lasts for like 20 minutes because they don't need to think about going back to their chairs.

We have standing desks here, but I'm *STILL* waiting for the guys to come in and modify my desk.

I've personally been walking to work everyday, though I don't bother walking back normally unless I feel very energetic and/or went shopping and then didn't feel like taking the bus since I'm already halfway. It's about 1.6 miles direct. At lunch, I tend to just go out for a walk with occasional jogs and sprints. I use My Tracks on my phone to map out my route and distance/speed/time. I generally go between 1.5-3 miles, depending on how much time I have that day and what I wanna do at lunch. I often walk to a nearby Whole Foods to stock up on random stuff like coconut milk.

MWF, I also walk by a park on my way to work, and then do pullups/chinups with the monkey bars there.

[activia]

bump.. anyone in?

[Want2BeAPinup]

I'm in!

I have pedals under my desk that I will challenge myself to use 10 min out of every hour (that I am at said desk). My job forces me to walk between 3 buildings every day for service calls, but it's not a consistent amount of movement. I have also done the bathroom exercises which I will commit to getting into again.

Another option I wouldn't mind trying again is DVD workouts on my computer. I am fortunate enough to have my own office now and I used to paper over the window in my door and do the 30 day shred back when I was in better shape. Only the two people on the other side of my walls know what's going on and they are already convinced I am a weird one so who really cares? LOL

[lssanjose]

Since I work at home, I've some flexibility. I haven't looked at standing desks, but I do like sitting on my stability ball. But, to save myself from eye strain I run to my pullup bar, periodically, and crank out reps; and do some push ups. I just walked six miles home, from the gym I frequent. I'm tempted to do this more often.

[ommmmaggie]

A few years ago, Gmail Labs had an option to lock up your email every so often, you set the interval, but then it would lock up for 15 minutes so you couldn't access your email. I don't see it now, but would love something like this that would make my computer unusable every half-hour, for 5 minutes or so. Anyone know of a program that does this?

[denasqu]

I'll commit to

(1)parking at the far end of the parking lots
(2) doing the weekly walk-thru's at the six properties I manage and I'm supposed to do anyway
(3) willingly move the top shelf file boxes around for the little ladies in the office instead of bitching about it
(4) get up and move from my desk at least every 30 minutes

[tim_1522]

How did I miss this?

Of course, I'm already on this thread: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread45519.html

But, yeah, I'm a desk jockey, too! And, I'm all too familiar with SCRUMs.

So, here's what I do:

1) I work in a building that's ~1/8 mile long (yes, I've measured it) so every hour or so, I get up and walk from one end of the building up the stairs, from end to end again, then down the stairs and back to my desk (I call it 1/4 mile) which takes about 5-6 minutes and I try to get 6 of these in throughout the day.
2) I eat lunch at my desk (usually later in the day than most) and then go for a walk outside -- I have a route that's 1.6 miles which I can knock out in 25-30 minutes. On days when it rains, I'm forced to just do more "building loops"
3) I also park on the far corner of the lot at work so when I go to/from my car I get some extra walking in (and I don't even count it in my totals)

Just 1) and 2) alone get me 3.1 miles a day which I pretty consistently do every work day. Weekends, I don't always hit this number as well, but I end up doing more "play" type stuff (as well as stuff like yardwork that's most certainly NOT "play" but still needs to be done and still gets you moving frequently) It also gets me outside for some sun exposure and I do it alone, so I get time to think/decompress.

Outside of work I'm currently:

-Running, but at low-levels, (staying in the 50-75% MHR zone) 3-4 days a week to train for a half-marathon in April. I'm *very* serious about keeping it low-level! I also walk 1/4 mile before and 1/4 mile after my runs to warm up/cool down, so there's another 1/2 mile of walking everyday!
-I'm also doing a LHT workout 2x/week and Sprints 1x/week...on average, I try to mix things up and not do the exact same workout plan week after week -- trying to keep life "fractal" as Mark puts it.
-I'm coaching my daughter's basketball team and I'm not the type to just stand on the sidelines. I get in and show them how to make cuts and set screens and work with them on passing, shooting, dribbling drills. No, I'm not huffing and puffing like they are at the end of practice. But, I got plenty of "movin' around" in.