Getting Fit Over Lunch

By Grace Thornton

We all know we should exercise. Doctors tell us we should, magazines tell us we should . . . our waistline tells us we should.
 
But it seems so hard to fit it in sometimes. At night, there’s dinner to fix and places to go. In the morning—well, sometimes it’s just impossible to get up early enough to get in a workout.

So what’s the answer? According to some experts, it’s your lunch break.
 
“It’s found time,” says Lisa Costello, a certified personal trainer and group fitness instructor in San Francisco, according to WebMD.com. “If you’re going to go for lunch or hang out in someone’s office, why not use that time for yourself—and for your body?”
 
So now that you’ve decided to give it a shot, what do you do? First figure out how much time you’ve got.
 
If you have an hour or more and access to a nearby gym, walking trail, or even a good sidewalk, you can get in a half-hour walk, jog, or other workout—especially if you have access to a shower.

“Just put on sneakers and get out there,” says Lisa Johnson, a certified personal trainer in Brookline, Massachusetts, according to WebMD.com. “If you walk for half an hour a day and maintain a relatively healthy diet you can lose 10 pounds a year.”

If you don’t have that much time, don’t have a gym, and/or don’t have anywhere to freshen up afterward, Minna Lessig, a fitness contributor on The Early Show, says there are a few exercises you can do without ever shedding your business casual.

She recommends starting with a light, five-minute walk to stretch your muscles. “After five minutes of warming up, take two minutes to gently stretch your body,” she says.

Then do some squats. Follow that up with 10–15 leg extensions. These are done by sitting in a chair with your back straight and lifting your legs until they are parallel with the floor, and then lowering them slowly to the starting position. Next, do 10–15 hamstring curls. While standing, bend your leg at the knee, slowly lift your foot up toward your quads, and then slowly lower it to the floor again.

For your arms, stay seated and do dumbbell curls (if you don’t have a dumbbell at the office, try a can of soup) to work your biceps and triceps. “And last but not least, the abs. Grab an exercise ball—so good for your lower back for support,” Lessig says. “Keep your hands behind the head, or cross in front, and do your crunches.” Then finish off the workout with a few light stretches.

Need help keeping up with it, or just a little personal accountability? Try logging your workouts for free at traininglog.runnersworld.com so you can track your progress over time. 

Into walking or running and want someone else to keep up with your progress for you? Check out Nike + products at nikeplus.nike.com.

Before you know it, all those lunches can add up—and in a good way.

Grace Thornton works as a writer and editor in Birmingham, Ala. Despite always being the slowest kid in school, she's determined to become a runner by age 28. She sneaks off on road trips as much as possible and would live on chocolate-covered strawberries if she could.

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