Singaporeans, how do you lose weight when you have a sedentary job which involves sitting at the desk most of the times?
Netizens’ comments
- lift weights, more muscle equates to higher metabolic rate. do light cardio 3 times a week. lost 25kgs this way and i have an extremely sedentary job.
- Intermittent Fasting
I do 16hr fasts starting at 8pm till 12pm the next day – If I have to work from the office then the fasts becomes longer, I usually eat at 12pm and then stop around 4pm till noon the next day;
Jogging
I started jogging 4/5kms 4x a week, it was rough at the start, I’d be close to fainting after 500m but I’ve found my pace now and no longer get that feeling
When I started working at my current job, waist size went up to a 41, I’m 185cm tall so probably pretty unnoticeable unless scrutinized so I didn’t really get the “wow you’ve put on weight” remarks (I also don’t have a pot belly) but I could definitely feel my clothes getting tighter and my usual jeans couldn’t fit me comfortably
I’m down to a size 38 now, hoping to got to a 36 which would be perfect in my eyes - Doing jumping jacks in the morning help to wake me up. Before I sleep, do about 20 push ups, squats and sit ups. It is not alot, takes me less than 5 mins, but consistency is key, a little work out everyday goes a long way i guess
- Long term solution is to exercise. The more muscle you have in your body, the higher your metabolism will be because muscles require more energy to sustain. Hence this means that your maintenance calorie will be higher. This also indirectly means that you will lose weight if you eat the same amount as before you gained muscles. Once you have enough muscle in your body, you’ll no longer need to go out of your way to eat less (unless you really big eater ah). This is why those buff people still look relatively lean even if they don’t explicitly diet to lose weight.
Short-term solution, just diet lol. The easiest way is to drink a lot of water to bloat yourself into feeling full. Of course, don’t starve yourself, but eat the minimum required calorie per day, a.k.a your maintenance calorie. And anytime you are hungry just chug water; unless you can fit snacks into your maintenance calorie.
Another easy way is to not take bus if you can help it. Walking 10-20 mins to and from mrt can be the difference between gaining and losing weight for some people. Especially since sedentary lifestyle, this might be the only exercise you can fit into your day without giving up too much time and effort.
Honestly don’t bother with eating healthy and what not if your priority is to lose weight. Like especially with how misleading alot of information is, it’s more efficient to just focus on your calorie intake than to waste time on protein carbs and fats all that. Like so what if most of your diet is fats, you still ate less than 1500 calories per day. Still will lose weight. Of course, I don’t recommend that but yea hope you see my point.