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14 Jun 2007 04:51 AM

How to Improve Your Computer Fitness

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

We talked about Your Computer versus Your Fitness yesterday. Today, we're going to talk about how to improve your computer fitness, but we're not talking about the health of your actual machine, for tips on your computer and computing, check out our computing blog. In the meanwhile, it's important to remember when you are sitting at your desk, hour after hour; that there is something you can do to improve your own fitness in those hours.

So How Can You Do It?

Take a good look at your nutrition. What do you eat and drink when you are sitting at your desk writing? Do you drink a lot of coffee? Many people drink two or three cups in a morning and maybe more in the afternoon.

Valorie discussed a similar phenomenon The Connection Between Weight Loss and Sleep and how often she drinks more coffee in the morning when she isn't getting a lot of sleep. Remember, coffee contains caffeine and it stimulates your central nervous system. Too much caffeine can actually keep you in a state of exhaustion and this will defeat the purpose of drinking the coffee. As a rule of thumb, I drink half-café or decaf after that first cup in the morning. I also replace coffee with water, because your body may simulate hunger when you are actually thirsty. Especially if you are drinking too much coffee; so replace your extra cups with coffee with water.

Water will re-hydrate you; it will flush out impurities; and it will help provide you with energy and more. So how much coffee do you drink and can you replace that excess coffee with some water?

Take Frequent Breaks

You should take at least a 10-minute break for every hour you sit at your computer. Stand up, stretch, move around and get the circulation going again. You can use an egg timer like I described yesterday or you can use a program on your computer that flashes up a reminder. Outlook offers a calendar and meeting system that will remind you to get up and move. Consider for a moment, if you got up for a brisk ten-minute walk every hour that you work, that's 80 minutes for every 8-hour day you put in - and that's more than enough to meet your exercise requirements.

We'll talk more about your computer and your fitness in the coming weeks, so check back for more tips. What do you do to keep up your fitness even while working at a computer all day?

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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