As so many of us have shifted to working from home in the past year, our lives have faced unforeseen challenges. While we all love avoiding that morning rush hour commute, it has been difficult to negotiate your work life and your home life when they’re suddenly combined.

While developing a home office and thriving in the work from home model have presented challenges, they’ve also presented opportunities to professionals across almost every industry. One of those opportunities is to find more time in your day for exercise and calorie burning. This doesn’t mean you have to escape to a gym for a few hours because with new technology, like a desk bike or treadmill desk, you can actually burn calories and stay active—all while getting work done and keeping productive.

Sounds great, right? Burning calories throughout your day is critical to maintain good health and ward off potential health issues, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, and even mental health issues like depression. Here, we’re taking a closer look at ways that you can burn calories while working from home—staying active and productive all at the same time.

What Are Calories?

Let’s start with the basics. Before we dig into ways on how to burn calories, let’s look at what these are in the first place. A calorie is a unit of energy and consuming calories from food and drinks is essential for to survive. Whether consumed in the form of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, or sugars, calories allow our bodies to grow and function on a daily basis.

In the battle for a healthy body and mind, it’s important to remember that calories are your friend—not the enemy. Simply avoiding calories by not eating enough is not a sustainable or healthy way to lose weight. Rather, one should focus on consuming good calories that come from healthy foods and getting in moderate exercise on a daily basis.

Ways To Burn Calories While Working From Home

With a busy schedule—no matter where you’re working—it can be difficult to exercise and burn off those calories. But with a few simple strategies, you can actively burn calories, improve your health, and stay productive during your work day. By burning calories at home, you can also save time in your day overall by avoiding an additional trip to the gym later on.

Take a look at 5 ways to burn calories while working from home:

1. Take Short Exercise Breaks

You don’t always need to commit hours at the gym or running on a treadmill to burn calories and see gains in your health and fitness. Taking short breaks to exercise throughout the course of your day can add up and really make a difference. Try this: for every hour of your workday, take about 5 or 10 minutes to perform light to moderate exercise, such as running on a treadmill, doing pushups, or even a short yoga practice. Add these all up at the end of your day, and you won’t even need to go to the gym.

2. Use A Fitness Ball

Using a fitness ball to replace your desk chair is an incredibly simple way to burn calories while working from home. Sitting on an exercise ball not only burns calories, but it also helps to work on your core muscles and improves balance. Over time, you may not even notice you’re using one.

3. Take A Snack Break

Eating to help burn calories, how does that work? Well, when you’re home, you have easy access to your whole kitchen and many studies suggest that by eating several small meals throughout the day, instead of just three big ones, is beneficial and can help with digestion. It also takes your body more energy to digest smaller meals over hours. But it’s important to make these healthy snacks, such as nuts, fruits, and vegetables.

4. Use A Bike Desk

Cycling is a great form of exercise that burns calories, and compared to running, puts far less stress and impact on your joints and muscles. By equipping yourself with an innovative bike desk in your home office, you can steadily burn calories while you work. These bike desks are designed to allow you to comfortable pedal the stationary bike while working with the attached desk.

5. Use A Treadmill Desk

If a bike desk isn’t your style, you can always go for a treadmill desk. This piece of technology combines a treadmill with an office desk so that you can steadily walk (and burn those calories) while completing your work tasks. Studies show that using a treadmill desk also helps you avoid the health hazards of a sedentary lifestyle when you’re sitting down all day.

Conclusion – How to Burn Calories While Working From Home

Working from home has forced many of us to adjust to new challenges, such as balancing your work life and professional life, creating a home office when you may not have room, and relying on digital tools to interact with coworkers and complete tasks on schedule. However, the work from shift has also presented many new opportunities—in addition to just avoiding that dreaded morning commute.

Working from home can open the door to allow you to burn more calories throughout your work day. This doesn’t mean you need to skip out early to hit the gym. By making small measures throughout the course of your day, you can steadily burn calories while working. Take small exercise breaks, use a fitness ball as a chair, and keep moving throughout your day to burn excess calories and improve your fitness.

To really boost your calorie burning, consider investing in a desk bike or treadmill desk. These handy devices are designed to keep you moving and keep you productive during the work day. With adjustable parts, easy storage, and the latest technology, a desk bike or treadmill desk could be just what you need to boost your health, feel better, and be more productive than ever before.