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People who are in jobs that require a lot of sitting, like an office job find it difficult to stick to their eating plans and often end up putting on weight in such environments. I believe there are a few reasons for this namely: Lack of planning, Habit, Boredom and Peer pressure.

Usually in my experience in the work place the food that is easily available to us are foods that are not necessarily too healthy. The thing is that are convenient. Planning ahead can help a lot. It may seem like a lot of work initially, but once you get into it ' it is not and also it saves a lot of money. Prepare your lunch the night. You can include all the foods that help you to lose weight or not put on weight in the office, you can also include some healthy snacks to munch on in between. This is not only good for your weight, but good for your health and believe it or not eating 'junk' food or fatty foods at the office, can decrease productivity in the workplace, concentration and attitude. By munching on snacks in between at least every 2 / 3 hours we keep our metabolism working a good rate. Planning helps to break sabotaging habits. It does not have to take longer than 30 min and like with everyone, when you get into the groove of it ' it gets easier and easier and you will see the results.

With regards to boredom, if you are unhappy or bored at your job, without realizing it, you often start eating more. This is called emotional eating and in fact no amount of eating will relieve the boredom. It actually just makes the situation more unhappy and conflicting.

Lastly I would like to talk about peer pressure. As you know, peer pressure is very difficult to resist in any circumstance and equally so ' in the office. It can be very difficult to say NO to co-workers who get together every day for lunch time or buy from the lunch cart. The end result, however, is added weight and a not so happy YOU. Let them know you are on a program, get them to support you and join them once a week instead of everyday.

Absolute musts for weight control or weight loss especialy for someone in a job that involves much sitting are:

Drink lots of water ' keep a bottle on your desk, take a sip of water each time you pass a water fountain.

Avoid eating fried foods or foods that are high in transfats. Check the food labels for this.

Avoid sodas ' they are high in sugar.

Avoid white carbohydrates such as white bread. Sandwiches would fall in to this category. If you eat sandwiches, eat whole wheat bread, high in fibre and check what is on the sandwich, avoid dressings such as mayonnaise that are very high in fat.

Avoid high fat dairy products ' this includes whole milk. So if you drink coffee at work, replace full cream milk with 1% or skim milk.

Plan your meals. Planning is key to maintenance and weight loss.

Identify emotional eating or pure physical hunger. Are you eating because you are bored or frustrated or other 'or because everyone else is or because you are hungry?

Other Very Useful Tips:

Identify your poor habits and start to break them with habits that will serve you.

Avoid getting into habits that could be a permanent problem such as a cappuccino one day and before you now you are having a cappuccino everyday.

Depending on the length of your lunch time ' maybe go to the gym at this time or go waling with a few colleagues a certain amount of days a week.

Form a support group at work.