Lunch: Remember The Side Order of Oxygen

Twelve noon. Time for . . . the usual tuna sandwich and rice pudding from the company cafeteria? Lunch out somewhere with coworkers? Yogurt at your desk along with a juicy novel?

Whatever it is that you do for lunch, you can do more. Even if you get only 30 minutes instead of an hour, you can fit fitness into your lunch break. How long does it take, after all, to eat?

If you really need a full hour, l’m going to guess that might be one of your fitness problems right there. Yes, we should chew our food thoroughly, but that’s a lot of food chewed.

The point is simply this: Today’s lunch hour offers itself as one of the richest opportunities for exercise.

Think about it:
1) It doesn’t dip into family time. Don’t you hate those dinners messed up by having to get to the health club, health—rider, fitness video, or whatever other nighttime exercise obligation you’ve come to despise?

2) If can give you the energy you need when youneed it. And don’t you regret those late-night workouts that rev you up only so you can stay up too late watching how to make fattening meals on the Food Network? Working out during lunch can iuice you up for the rest of your money—making day.

3) It can be free. lf your company has a fitness facility, and many do nowadays, some of those unaffordable exercise gizmos you lust for probably are there just waiting tor you. And even it your place of business doesn’t have a fitness facility, you’ll be exercising on company time. Your lunch hour is built into your contract; you may use it however you see fit.

4) It can put those Lunch-time calories to work rather than just to fat. Sit back down at your desk after one of those four-star lunches intended to impress somebody, and what happens? Calories with nowhere to go generally turn to fat. But by working out- lightly — alter you eat, you give all those chocolate mousse calories in your blood something more productive to do. Research shows that moderate exercise after eating, in tact, can increase calorie-burning by as much as 30 percent.