A survey done in 2018 by CareerBuilder on 1,117 individuals who had full-time jobs in the United States found that about 45% of them reported having gained weight in their current jobs. Interestingly, the weight gain was more common among female workers, with 49% of them reporting it compared to 40% of male workers. Additionally, 25% of those surveyed mentioned having gained around 5 pounds or more in their current jobs. Another significant study done by researchers at the University of Georgia revealed that employees who had excessive workload and experienced burnout were developing negative habits such as overeating and sedentary lifestyle. These employees were also consuming foods that had more fat! Reportedly, they were so overstressed with work that even if they knew that they should be eating right and exercise for good health, they just didn’t have the time or energy to make necessary changes. So, want to know why long working hours is behind your weight gain? Let’s find out:
1. Long Working Hours Leave You With No Energy:
If you leave for work by 8 am and reach home only by 8 pm, then you are putting in too many hours at work. It’s obvious that you would neither have the time nor the energy for exercise or any other physical activity where you have a chance to burn excess calories, let alone find time to hit the gym.
2. Overeating At The End of the Day:
Projects to finish and deadlines to meet may leave little time during long working hours to have proper meals during the day. As a result, employees may either delay or skip meals altogether, leading to excessive hunger and overeating when they finally have the chance to eat (which is mostly during the night time), and and most of the eating would be to overcompensate for the long day at work. This would easily lead to weight gain over a period of few months.
3. Too Many Cups of Tea/Coffee To Recharge:
The caffeine kick from tea/coffee can act as a natural stimulant which helps to improve alertness and focus. When you’re feeling tired and sluggish in the afternoon, a cup of coffee can help sharpen your focus and make you more awake and alert. A cup of tea or coffee can also provide a temporary energy boost, particularly when paired with a sugary snack, and gives that quick pick-me-up to power through the rest of the workday. But with long working hours, you may need more than a few cups, to get quick boosts of energy. So much caffeine along with heaps of sugar in the system can act as roadblock in your weight loss journey. Also read: “7 Things To Do During Coffee Break To Boost Weight Loss.”
4. Co-Workers Acting As Food Pushers:
If your co-workers indulge in unhealthy snacks or meals, and offer you the same, you might get tempted to try. Colleagues also may bring in treats, sweets, candies, chocolates, doughnuts, cookies, etc., to share and it’s hard to say “no” to either the colleagues or the sweet treats they bring. All these snacks are calorie dense and having them through the day would definitely pack on extra pounds.
5. Office Vending Machines and Pantry May Not Offer Healthy Food Choices:
The nutrients in food give us the energy to perform our best and if all our main meals lack nutrients, it would hinder our performance. When you are spending a majority of the day in the office, surviving on office vending machine snacks and a pantry with limited healthy options, there’s hardly any room for nutrient-dense food to derive nutrients from. Instead, what you need to actually lose weight are meals from diet plans on the Rati Beauty diet. Subscribe to the Rati Beauty app to access all our diet plans.
6. Office Parties, Get-Togethers, Lunch Meetings, Dinner, Birthday Celebrations of Co-Workers:
At the office, every occasion gets celebrated and there are just too many. There are office parties, lunch meetings, birthday parties – and all of these revolve around food. If extra pounds are slowly showing up on the weighing scale, you need to keep a tabs on these office parties.
7. Bringing Work Stress To Home:
Long hours of work also means you are constantly under stress, and carry that stress to home as well. In that case, you may find it difficult to relax and unwind, worrying about work-related issues such as meeting deadlines the next day. Under this chronic stress, your body would release a hormone called cortisol that would make you crave for sugary and high-fat food, and slow down metabolism as well. You may resort to emotional eating as a strategy to relieve stress. Additionally, this kind of stress can keep you up most of the night and there are numerous studies that show a strong link between sleep deprivation, weight gain, and belly fat! So, do get that mandatory 7 hours of sleep every single night!.
8. Spending Long Hours at the Work Desk:
]As mentioned earlier, long working hours in the office, where you are spending most of the day hunched over at the desk, would leave you with little energy at the end of the day. A sedentary lifestyle can promote fat accumulation, especially around the abdominal area. When you’re not moving much, you can gain weight more easily. Also, if you sit a lot, you might end up eating more snacks, especially unhealthy ones. This can make you gain even more weight.
Summing up, do not allow long hours at work play havoc with your health. It’s clear that there are so many factors contributing to weight gain when you are in a stressful work environment. While you may think that only your busy work schedule is preventing you from going to the gym, there are additional factors that contribute to weight gain, including emotional eating to relieve work-related stress. If you’re concerned about your waistline expanding and do not know how to lose weight with a highly-demanding job, turn to Rati Beauty diet to know the right strategies to lose weight.
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