That is the one downside in being in this industry. The fact that you have to sit for so long. This past year of work saw my physical activitly decline over the previous years. I'm used to playing sports 3-5 days a week, but last year I was down to 2-3 days a week. Sometimes even less.

As for the diet, I'm usually good and eating right. I avoid fast food joints (when possible). Although that is difficult at times when nothing else is open and you're hungry.

I tell ya, after sitting at a desk for 8 hours, it's hard to go and play Volleyball where you have to jump around and dive. Pain is always there waiting for me. But I figure I better do it or else more serious risks will arise.

Bottom line is, it's difficult. But you must exercise and avoid the LARGE portions that North Americans seem to think are a regular serving. Check out this month's National Geographic's issue. It deals with fat in North America and has a little side by side picture of how the portions of food have changed from McDonald's 1954 Burger to the present one among other things.

Here is a link to an excerpt of that article from NG:

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0408/feature3/index.html

I've never been a great one for exercise. I've not been into a lot of team sports.

Last summer I *knew* that I had to do something or I would turn into a fat, weak blob. So I started running at lunch. Not only is it now part of my schedule so I do it 5 times a week, but I feel much better after.

It's a lot easier to work your hours if you do some exercise in between. It really breaks up the day and lets me de-stress. Nothing like getting rid of your pent up emotion by going for a run and getting back wondering why you were so stressed when you left.

That's what I do. ;-)

I can't see how sitting around all day promotes lack of exercise. By the time the day is done I need to go and work out lifting weights or to paly baskeball or something. It could be that I have noticed that office jobs tend to decrease the amount of lower abdominal strength leading the pot-bollies beginning at the pelvis, (Bad news in my books) which motivates me to exercise everyday.

It not so much promotes lack of exercise as it takes time away from your day that you could be exercising. Exercising could be any movement at all that burns calories, like walking.

There are people that are walking/moving around all day at their jobs. Chefs, mailmen, firemen, doctors, etc, etc. Just going to work is a workout.

We are largely sedentary in comparison to these jobs, and either must consume less calories or burn them off in order to keep a balanced weight.

James: "I can't see how sitting around all day promotes lack of exercise."

I don't think it promotes lack of exercise, it just makes more difficult on the body and mind. When your body is just sitting there for 8 hours, and then an hour later you're playing a physical 3 hour match, it gets to you after a 9 month season. There's no "warm up" physically and mentally. Thus you know what you have to do on the court, but you can't do it because mentally you many not be as focused as you're supposed to be.

You just jolt your body into playing as hard as you can. I personally play on a competitive team and I'm expected to give my all, as are the other guys. I wouldn't have it any other way, or else I may as well play recreation.

NOTE: I HATE REC BALL.

I know how much what you do at a job can change what kind of shape your body is in. I lost 10 pounds in the 3 months I spent working at the house of cheese. I've gotten an office job now, and I know i'm not getting enough exercise. I hope I don't gain it all back. I need to find some way of working exercise into my day.

Heehee!

Another reason to take a night job at a restaurant. Server's probably cover around 10 km a shift.

Here's the math...

Server's walk around 40% of their shift - or about 25 seconds every minute (and standing for about 99%).

Let's say a server walks 1 pace (2 steps) every second. So every 3 minutes around 100 meters (35 - 45 paces = 50 meters) is travelled.

Now there are 20 three-minute chunks per hour, so every hour a server walks around 2 km. So after an average 5 hour shift (personally, I average around 7 hours), the server has travelled around 10km.

Hey man do you happen to have a copy of this movie or know someone who does?

Yeah, i started going to the gym at work a couple nites per week, because of the gut i've grown from sitting on my ass so much at work. I also - intentionally - stand during the bus rides to and from work, because i know that all i'll be doing at work is sitting.

I try to work it out so that i go to the gym on the nites that it's crap out, and i go out unicycling at the university on the nice nites. Overall, i probably get a couple hours of exercise 5 nites per week.

Our lives today are so busy that many people don’t have the time to exercise or sit down and have home cooked, healthy meals. I thought that the movie "Super Size Me" was very interesting in depicting an aspect of our society today that many foreign countries immediately associate with America; fast food! I for one usually don’t, and probably will never again eat McDonalds. I was rather appalled by millions of Americans in the film who do, however, eat fast food of some variety nearly every day. What happened to the days of eating healthy, well rounded meals? Who would have thought 40 years ago that one day mal nutrition would not be caused by a lack of food, but rather an excess of the wrong kinds of food? In today’s world our jobs, our families, our government, and almost every aspect of our lives revolves around the big green; money. Money indeed does make the world go 'round, and through this change, the obsession for more money = more time. Time is money, and therefore we, especially as Americans, find the fastest and cheapest way to get all tasks done. For these reasons, companies such as McDonalds have made their business by marketing to the lifestyle on the go, and consequently have affected all of American society today. It never occurred to this new food industry that just because our lives are moving faster does not mean we should destroy them with poor diet. So, kudos to Morgan Spurlock, the director and guinea pig of "Super Size Me". Not only does it take guts to eat McDo's for a year but it requires a heck of a lot more gut to go against McDonald's, one of the biggest monopolies of this world (second to Wal-Mart).