Jobs That Keep You In Shape

By Rachel Zupek
Over the years, countless magazine articles have promised you could "lose weight at work" or "tone up in 10 minutes at your desk."

Such pieces advise employees to bring two soup cans to work to do bicep curls during a conference call, or sit on a medicine ball (instead of your chair) to strengthen your core muscles throughout the day. Mayo Clinic even designed a vertical workstation -- a desk fitted over a treadmill that lets employees walk through their workday, instead of sitting at their desk.

"Easy" as these tasks may seem, when you get down to it, they aren't easy at all. After all, who wants to spend their day trying to balance on a ball or sweating profusely at their $1,600 desk (the approximate cost of the vertical workstation)?

Instead of trying to tone up before, during or after work, why not find a job that is a workout in and of itself? We're not talking about the typical fitness occupations, like a personal trainer or an aerobics instructor. We're talking about childcare workers, painters and messengers (to name a few).

Here are 10 jobs that will give you a great workout everyday:

1.Painters apply paint coats, finishes and stains to houses, buildings and other structures. They also prepare the surfaces by washing, sanding and stripping walls of existing paint or paper.
Workout: If you've ever seen the "Karate Kid", you remember "paint the fence." The fluid up-and-down and side-to-side motion of painting gives your arms and shoulders a great workout.

Average annual salary: $31,603*

2. Landscapers maintain land areas by trimming grass and trees; mulching; fertilizing; planting flowers and trees; building walkways and patios and snow removal in wintry areas.
Workout: You're constantly bending, lifting and shoveling mulch and fertilizer, among other things. Plus, since the job is seasonal, you're working outside in the heat, sweating up a storm.

Average annual salary: $24,191*

3. Childcare workers look after children of all ages. They bathe, feed and supervise kids; take kids to and from activities; and play with them to keep them entertained.
Workout: When asked how they find time to stay in shape, moms usually respond with something like, "chasing my kids around." The same is true for childcare workers. Carrying kids around, playing outside, picking them up and setting them down is a workout indeed.

Average annual salary: $17,630**

4. Construction laborers build everything from houses and commercial structures to highways and infrastructure.
Workout: Almost all of the jobs construction workers perform require physical strength, whether it is heavy lifting, operating machinery or demolition.

Average annual salary: $30,914*

5. Messengers deliver messages, telegrams, documents and packages that need to be sent or received quickly to business establishments and private homes within a local area.
Workout: While some messengers travel by motorcycle, car or public transportation, during nice weather, most deliver by bicycle or on foot, which gives a great cardio workout.

Average annual salary: $21,050*

More here.

20 Reasons to Lose 20 Pounds

From menshealth.com:

1. Because you whine that you need to. Have you ever been wrong about anything?

2. Twenty pounds of warm human fat can refill every bottle in an empty case of beer, with enough left over to fill your blender.

3. The statement "There's more of me to love" has an actual bedroom translation of "There's more of me to endure."

4. It's not scaling Everest or writing the great American novel. You can do it in your spare time.

5. You'll speak of toaster pastries the way you talk about that dirty blonde from the blues bar in Berkeley, another whiskey-soaked lament over a love too great to last.

6. It's the difference between being thought of as jolly or witty.

7. You'll lose weight everywhere, including the suprapubic fat pad at the base of your penis. So as your belly shrinks, something else appears to grow.

8. Decreased: your chances of developing heart disease, prostate cancer, diabetes, sleep apnea, depression, back pain, impotence, gallstones, joint problems, high blood pressure, low sperm counts, and an impressive collection of prescription-drug bottles.

9. Increased: your chances of putting four fingers on a basketball rim.

10. You'll literally get closer to women.

11. Wow. . . abs!

12. Men who lose weight never have less sex. They may not have more, mind you, but they never have less.

13. You'll shock the world at your local pool by being the only "big splash" champ to win the "little splash" crown.

14. Research shows that since you'll have less weight propelling you into the windshield, you'll also have less risk of dying when your car hits a semi.

15. Every time you pick up a 20-pound dumbbell, you'll remember.

16. You'll be able to reach even more places to scratch.

17. The clothing cliche: It's liberating the first time your pants fall down by themselves.

18. More pullups, because there's less to pull up.

19. Wait till you ride a WaveRunner, quad, or snowmobile when you're 20 pounds lighter. Vroom, baby.

20. In our society, people respect weight loss. Even if you do nothing cool or interesting or memorable for the rest of your life, you'll have done that.

Easter Sunday Weigh In

Drumroll please...today's weight is...

205!

Another pound lost for a total of 30 lbs, and 30 lbs to go.

Onward...

21 Ways to Stick to a Workout

We've heard all the excuses for skipping a workout. (We've used a few ourselves.)

No empty calories. No wimp-outs. No excuses.

No, really.

We believe you. More men join gyms in January than in any other month. Of the 16 percent of guys who resolve to work out more in the new year, however, 49 percent fail to adhere to their resolutions. We've heard all the excuses. (We've used a few ourselves.)

So we made a list of them--the lame and the understandable. Then we called around to psychologists, dietitians, trainers, and men who manage to work out no matter how busy their lives are.

First, the legitimate excuses. We found four: You're sore, you're sick, you're exhausted, you're hurt. That's it.

Soreness means your body needs a break: "Recovery is as important as working out," says Carter Hays, C.S.C.S., a Houston-based personal trainer. Overtraining keeps as many men from reaching their goals as undertraining does, says Hays. An illness means you should knock off and let your body fight the bug. If you're so tired you're drowsy, you could hurt yourself. And if you're injured--especially if you're experiencing joint pain--let your body heal.

As for the rest of the excuses, listen up:

More here.

Portion Distortion

Think you know how much food you eat? In the past decade, serving sizes have grown so much that a snack today sometimes means two or three times more food than 20 years ago.

Take the quiz here.

Sunday Weigh In

Drumroll please...today's weight is...

206!

That's a one pound gain from last week and a total of 29 lbs. lost. I have no idea what caused this. I ran 5 times this week, versus my usual 3. Food is the only thing I can think of, but I'm not sure what I did so wrong or so differently this week.

Oh well. Back to basics. Onward...

Test Your Nutrition IQ

Long gone is the era of four food groups and three square meals. It seems that every day brings a new revelation about which foods belong in a healthy diet. Eat this. Avoid that. If you feel a little overwhelmed, you're not alone.

Food fads come and go, but nutrition common sense can last a long, long lifetime.

How savvy are you about healthy eating? Take Cooking Light's quiz to test your food smarts, and learn the basics of good nutrition along the way.

More here.

An Amazing Transformation

For 33-year-old Adam Waters, losing his gut proved to be very difficult.

An English teacher living in Japan, he indulged in local foods and skipped workouts. When he finally decided to shed the weight, he needed some extra motivation. So he started photographing himself daily and posting the pics on his blog for the world to see.

After 84 days, Waters had completely transformed his physique. He edited together the pics, made sort of a virtual flipbook, and posted the video online. Since then, his success has spawned a series of online "missions," where he continues to document his efforts to get as jacked and lean as possible.

More here.

Fight Fat With Flavor

Whether it's Spanish tapas, Chinese dim sum, or Greek mezes, small plates are huge news in American restaurants. And no one's walking away hungry. Why? Because big flavors can be just as filling as big portions. "Most places specializing in small plates create taste-rich sensations in microsize bites," says Brian Wansink, Ph.D., director of the Cornell University food lab and author of Mindless Eating. "And we've found that much of a man's eating satisfaction is derived from the flavor intensity and visual impact of a meal, not necessarily the amount served."

So forget mounds of mediocre food. Instead, downsize your dinner--and your gut--with these small but hugely satisfying dishes, courtesy of America's leading small-plate chefs.

More here.

Being Fit - Even Moderately - Cuts Stroke Risk

NEW YORK - Being merely moderately fit — walking briskly half an hour a day — can lower the risk of having a stroke, according to a new study whose findings apply to women as well as men.

Much of the previous research on stroke and fitness has been on men and relied on participants to report their physical activity, said Steven Hooker, who heads the University of South Carolina’s Prevention Research Center in Columbia and led the study. About a quarter of those in the new study were women, and everyone had a treadmill test to measure his or her fitness level.

More here.

Teacher Loses 120 Pounds, Drops Seven Dress Sizes

MARTINSBURG, West Virginia (CNN) -- Hardly a day that goes by that you won't find Tracey Wygal working out at the gym.

The 30-year-old middle-school teacher does cardio exercise, strength trains and follows what she calls a "clean diet."

That's quite a change for a woman who tipped the scales eight years ago at 295 pounds.

Wygal first started gaining weight in her early teens. A fast-food diet and little to no exercise helped her pack on the pounds, and her weight ballooned to over 200 pounds.

"It was my first year out of college, and that number, along with being diagnosed as morbidly obese, was very frightening," remembers Wygal. "I went to several doctors, trying to get them to prescribe a weight-loss pill."

But none of her doctors would give her the quick fix she was looking for. Instead, a physician handed her a 1,600-calorie-a-day diet and told her to start moving.

More here.

Writer Drops 168 Pounds, Blogs to Inspire Others

CLARION, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- She was never really skinny or terribly overweight for most of her life.

But Lynn Bering knew something wasn't right when she gained more than 100 pounds in just four years.

Doctors blamed it on a sluggish thyroid but Bering says that was only part of the problem. She also admits that bad eating habits which included a lot of carbohydrates.

Wearing a size 30/32 and weighing nearly 300 pounds, Bering says she it became difficult to move around and she felt tired and run down.

Even though her husband and family were supportive, Bering says she often passed on social events and work assignments out of embarrassment.

"I was the features editor at the local newspaper [and] getting increasingly uncomfortable with how I looked," Bering recalls. "I was increasingly giving up stories to interns so I didn't have to be out in public as much."

So, when a local antiques store went up for sale, Bering jumped at the chance to switch careers -- but for the wrong reasons.

More here.

Climbing Mountains

Dad loses 30 pounds, climbs Kilimanjaro with teen daughter


By Jackie AdamsCNN
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- From the outside, Bill McGahan looked like he lived a pretty good life.

He had a great marriage, four beautiful children and a great job in real estate. But the truth of the matter was he felt horrible.

McGahan, who was in his mid-40s, was overweight at 225 pounds. He could barely fit into his clothes; he snored loudly and didn't have the energy to play with his then 12-year-old daughter and 8-year-old triplets.

Bad eating habits, alcohol and a sedentary lifestyle had caught up with McGahan, who said he began to realize he could no longer eat the way he used to in college.

"I was on the see-food diet: What you see is what you eat," said McGahan. "Tons of carbs, pasta, pizza, steak, fries ... all the good stuff."

McGahan knew he needed to change his eating and exercise habits, but he wasn't getting the results he wanted at the gym. There also was something more important than losing weight -- he wanted to be healthy enough to play baseball and spend quality time with his kids.

He hated working out, so instead of focusing on diet and fitness -- he decided to set another goal.

More here.

Saturday Weigh In

I'm doing a weigh in today because I'm going out to dinner tonight which will most likely throw off the whole week!



Drumroll please...today's weight is...


205!


That's a total of 30 lbs. lost and 30 lbs. to go to reach my goal weight!!!!! Halfway home, baby!!! My goal now is to get below 200 lbs. before Easter Sunday (3/23). If I can get there, a weight I haven't seen in probably six years, I have to do something for myself (non-food related, of course).



I had a MAJOR cheat on Wednesday. It's Easter time which means all the good candy is out in stores, especially my favorite: Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs. I ate an entire pack of 6 or 8 eggs in one sitting. I punished myself the next day (as any good former Catholic would) with a hard run in the morning that led to a little puking by the side of the road. Fortunately none of the high school kids were outside waiting on the bus or I'm sure they would have had a good laugh at the old dude hurling by the lamppost. :)



Twelve weeks to go and things are going to be a little bit harder than I anticipated. That's 2.5 pounds a week to reach the goal. Doable, but it'll take some hard work and few, if any, slip ups.



Onward...

Sunday Weigh In

Drumroll please...today's weight is...

208!

I lost 3 of the 4 lbs I gained last week. That puts me back at a total of 27lbs lost. The strategy was simple: back to basics. I ran 4 days since last Sunday, even in Friday morning's 15 degree weather, which felt really good. I had almost no soda of any kind all week (one cup of Sprite and a Diet Coke) and almost no fast food (one sausage, egg, and cheese McMuffin). I plan to keep it up this week and shoot for a target weight loss of two pounds.

Onward...