Exercising At Work

Like most people, I work for a living – usually an eight hour day, although that can spike to nine or ten during tax season. My place of work gets really busy during tax season. Add a half hour commute to that, and nine and a half hours a day is spent working or engaged in work-related travel. So, if you’re like me, you may be wondering how to find the time to exercise.

Me, I do some of it at work.

Here’s how I look at it: I sit for a living. Specifically, I sit and take phone calls. When my breaks roll around, I need to get up and get away from my computer *anyway*. So I change out of my work shoes and into my shockingly expensive walking shoes (still comfortable, though), and I go walk. As a result, my schedule looks something like this:

• 4:50 am: Arrive at work. Park on the top floor of the parking garage, walk down three flights of stairs and into the building. Total elapsed distance, approximately 0.4 miles.
• Around 8 am: First break. Go outside and walk around the building if the weather is good, returning through the downstairs door so I have to walk up a flight of steps. If the weather’s bad, I accept that I’m going to get a few peculiar stares and I walk from one end of the building to the other and come back. Generally, I’ll go up a flight of stairs en route. Total elapsed distance, 0.4 to 0.6 miles – depending on the exact route.
• Around 9:30 am: Lunch. Eat something. Then follow the same general plan as my first break.
• Around noon: Second break. Follow the same general plan as my first break.
• Around 1:30 pm: Leave for the day. Walk back to my car, climbing three flights of stairs in the process. Gasp for breath a little at the top of the stairs. total elapsed distance, about 0.4 miles.

In total, this lets me get in between two and two and a half miles of walking and six flights of stairs. The only downside is that, if it’s hot and humid when I go outside, I run the risk of coming back in covered with sweat. That, my friends, is uncomfortable. The only tip I can offer, if you’re considering doing this as well, is to pace yourself – walk at a brisk pace, but not an exhausting one. You want your heart rate up, but not so far that you sweat like the proverbial pig.

Although, apparently, pigs don’t actually sweat very much.  So, maybe you do want to sweat like a pig.  So… you want your heart rate up, but… not so far that you end up wallowing in mud?

Nah.  I don’t think that version of the saying will catch on.

ADDENDUM:  there are reasons I like getting outside to walk when I’m at work…