That's Fit

Most of us have one major problem with exercise: Finding time for it. I know the feeling--between working 8-10 hours a day, spending time with family and trying to run a household, it's difficult, sometimes impossible, to find time to head to the gym. My job is no help--being a writer doesn't exactly burn too many calories.

But they key is trying to find way to work exercise into your everyday life. Weight Loss Journal recently revealed 8 ways to exercise throughout the day, including:

• Sucking in your stomach -- it really does help to tone your tummy, and it makes you look slimmer instantly.
  
• Fidgeting. It helps you burn calories throughout the day.
  
• Taking the stairs at work.
  
• Using a desk exercise machine. You can work away while silently pedalling under your desk. Neat, huh?

Read the rest of the tips here, and when you're done, tell us what you do to work in the workouts.

Smarts: most of us think we have them but surprisingly, few really do. Although it's true that your intelligence is in good part determined by factors out of your control (like genetics and whether or not your parents let you eat lead paint chips as kid), it's also true that you have more control over your brain power than you probably think. All kinds of daily decisions affect how well your brain works and how "smart" you are, including everything from what you eat to how you act to what exercises you choose for your workout. Are you maximizing your mental potential? If your coffee cup is too big or you often try to multi-task while working out you probably aren't. The following is a list of a few of the ways you can make the most of what you've got in the smarts department (don't worry, they're all pretty easy!).

You're probably doing your best to squeeze healthy eating choices and exercise into your work day, but are you doing it for all the right reasons? The majority of people are motivated to exercise and eat better by the desires to look better, feel better, and live longer, but did you know that adopting a fit lifestyle can actually help your career? Yep, hitting the gym can improve your work performance right along with your bench press stats.

Heroes star Ali Larter likes to eat. Dumplings, scallops with ravioli, a burger, fries, ketchup, and mayo are some of her likely indulgences. Just as quick as she scarfs down her favorite foods, though, she gets off her butt and starts working out.

It's part of the business, says Larter, of the need to look a certain way. And having been embarrassed in the past about her not-so-fit self, she's passionate about staying in shape -- for one photo shoot, she had to duct-tape her thighs because they were a little too round.

"What I do for a living puts me in the spotlight," she says. "They pay me for it."

For more on Larter and her heroic life, pick up the July issue of Allure magazine.

Health and fitness are big topics nowadays and because they're important to us in our everyday lives, they're also important to us in our work lives -- we spend too many waking hours at work to not worry about how our jobs are impacting our healthy living goals.

But what about thinking the reverse: how is your health affecting the success and happiness of your work life? Namely, do you think your weight is affecting your career?

Following a regular exercise regimen requires a great deal of discipline. However, if you look at how disciplined we actually are as a nation (for example, we now work more than any other industrialized country), and then look at how overweight we are, it becomes readily apparent that sticking to a workout requires more than just willpower.

Because we're always on the go, there's little time left for us to do anything we would like to do -- working out being no exception. In the time-crunched society in which we live, squeezing in a workout can sometimes be a very difficult thing to pull off. That being said, there are a many ways to help make this happen. Here are a few suggestions.

The Morning Workout. For those of you who already bang out your exercise in the A.M., you can skip to the next tip. For those of you who are still trying to find time in the evening (between work commutes and the 8,000 errands you need to run), rolling out of bed an hour earlier should give you enough time to put in a solid workout. Will it be tough at first? Yup. But you'll get used to it in about a week or two.

In a survey by CareerBuilder.com 49% of office workers said they had gained weight because of their jobs, and 28% of those people reported putting on more than 10 pounds (ouch!). Do you fit into one (or both) of those two groups? 49% is scarily close to a majority! It's no wonder so many of us struggle. Want some help? Try these 8 tips and tricks for losing weight (or at the very least keeping it from creeping on) while at work:

Out of sight, out of mind!
Apparently cutting down on how many times you grab a piece of candy from your (or your coworker's) candy dish at work is as simple as using an opaque candy dish with a lid. If you can't see the candy inside you're less likely to crave a piece of it (71% less likely!).

I just finished chatting with one of favorite friends who called to share some great news regarding his weight. Last month he stepped on the scale at a whopping 259 pounds. Not good news. That day though, he entered the "Biggest Loser" competition at his workplace, and he's lost about 20 pounds since. Great news!

Funny thing. He was telling me that some of his friends are now telling him how "worried" they are that he's losing so much weight. This dude is nowhere near anorexic. My gut reaction was, "where were these people and their vocal concern when you were creeping towards 300 pounds?" This guy is no more than six feet tall. He shouldn't be 259 pounds! He and I have talked weight loss in the past, but where were his other friends?

Anyway. I know it's taboo to tell a friend their weight is worrisome. But, isn't that what friends are for? Aren't we supposed to watch out for each other? Of course people need to choose good habits on their own, but a little heart to heart with your closest companion seems fair to me.

A lot of celebrities credit their work for their fabulous physiques. Actors aren't exactly stuck behind desks, and while some films and shows certainly require them to be more sedentary than others, they all require the actors to get up off the couch.

Liv Tyler is a great Fit Celeb role model. She keeps her figure lean and healthy without resorting to any extremes. She says she loves working out and loves the feeling of breaking a sweat, but admits that a lot of her workouts revolve around her work. For her last two movies, The Strangers and The Incredible Hulk she was required to do lots of running, screaming, crawling, and jumping, all day long.

Christina Ricci showed off how strong her training for her latest movie, Speed Racer, made her. She showed off her skills on Last Call with Carson Daly by doing a one-armed push-up, all while in heels.

The health of our planet is interconnected with our own personal health, so whether we like it or not, committing ourselves to a healthier, fitter lifestyle also means committing ourselves to a healthier, greener lifestyle. And although the whole "green thing" is starting to catch on in people's homes, it doesn't seem to have the same steam when it comes to workplaces. It's not clear whether it's because people think environmentally-friendly efforts at the office are someone else's problems or because they are simply discouraged by their employers lack of commitment, but whatever the reason, the environmental gap between home and office is shockingly large.

In a poll, 85% of people said that when they're at home, they turn their computer off when they're not using it as an effort to conserve energy but on the flip side, only 53% of those same people shut their office computers down at the end of each day. And that's just one small area -- the numbers are just as bad (or worse) for things like shutting off lights in empty rooms and avoiding excess waste when it comes to coffee and donuts.

A good percentage of today's career opportunities involve at least some traveling, and whether it's required or voluntary, fun or a drag, close to home or across the world, if it involves overnight stays and hotel rooms, it's most likely going to have an impact on your exercise schedule. And that impact, for most business travelers, is a bad one. How many of the hotels that you've stayed in have had nice workout facilities with enough equipment, and enough of the right equipment for you to keep your home routine going seamlessly? For me, just being in a different place with a different atmosphere is enough to make jumping on the treadmill for my usual routine hard.

When you go into work tomorrow, take a look all those nooks and crannies in your drawers and cupboards. Chances are, you'll find some surprises: A few candies here, some salty snacks there, maybe with a few cans of soda thrown into the mix? And I know as well as anyone that when you hit that 3 pm wall of fatigue, your defenses are down and you're prone to some unsafe snacking. Don't do it!

Instead, give your snack drawer a much-needed spring cleaning. Don't worry, you don't need to curtail mid-afternoon snacking altogether, but do make sure you pick up some healthy choices. Like?

• Nuts. They're full of protein and will help energize you in the afternoon.
• Dried fruit. Some raisins or dried cranberries will satisfy your sugar cravings and help keep you awake.
  
• Green tea. It's calorie-free and will help give you some much-needed energy.
  
• Dark chocolate. If nothing else tickles your fancy, a little bit of dark chocolate can do wonders for your mood. But make sure you know when to stop.
  

What do you stack in your desk?

Oh the good 'ol days when lunchtime was for nothing but eating, visiting with friends, and relaxing. When is the last time you did nothing but eat on your lunch break? We're a society of stressed-out, always-busy, multi-tasking maniacs most of the time, which of course sets us up for snarfing down fattening convenience foods from fast food joints and vending machines in an effort to save time. Not good. Not good at all.

Life is about more than just how much you accomplish each day and although being as productive as possible is not a bad thing, there's definitely something to be said for slowing down to smell the roses. Here's some good advice on how to make the most of your lunch break:

Get outside Depending on where you work, you're probably cooped up indoors in the same place for most of the day, so get outside and breath some fresh air to recharge your body and your mind.

Unless you've denounced electricity altogether and no longer use the internet, you've probably already read many of the popular green living tips today -- turn off the water when you brush your teeth, turn down your thermostat, turn off the lights, recycle, etc. But did you know you can also take those green habits to work?

Canadian Living has a few tips to get you started:

• Use fair-trade and organic coffees, and drink them out of your own, washable cup.
• Use refillable pens made from recycled plastic and pencils from sustainably-harvested wood.
• Carry your own lunch and use reusable containers and silverware.
• Put a plant on your desk to improve your office's indoor air quality.
• Turn off your computer at lunch, during meetings, and definitely at the end of the day.
  
  

The next step, getting your boss encourage green habits office-wide!

When you hear the words "harassment" and "workplace" together you probably automatically insert "sexual" in there somewhere, don't you? Although sexual harassment does seem to get most of the press these days (sex sells, I guess) there's an even bigger threat lurking out there: workplace harassment in the form of bullying.

Surprised? Some of you might be thinking that bullying is something that doesn't survive past the school-age years, but a whopping 37% of you have a real idea what being bullied at work means -- at least that's how many people have experienced it according to this article in The New York Times. That's more than 1/3 of us! Can that be right?