I’ve been looking for ways in my everyday life to become a little bit more active, even if its not hitting the gym every night after work. I am currently taking care of my roommate’s dog (remember yoga Winston?) while she is out of town, and as I was walking Winston at 6 this morning in the freezing cold (it was probably 60 degrees) with sleep still on my face, I was thinking about how this little walk is a little bit of activity that I normally do not do. And all morning long, I’ve been attempting to add extra exertion. I walked extra fast to the train on my way to work, stood on the train instead of sitting, and ran up the escalators instead of standing.

Having a desk job makes me really lazy sometimes. It takes a toll on your body to be sitting for 8 or 9 or 10 hours every day. I am lucky enough to work for a company that really cares about its employees. We have an extensive team in HR that works with benefits, and they launched an initiative focused on having a more ergonomic workplace when we moved to our new office at the beginning of the summer. All of our desks are adjustable to go from a sitting height, to standing height. (Our Idaho office has a treadmill desk…) Having a standing desk is awesome, but I realize I rarely take advantage of it.

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A company-wide email the other day informed me of the benefits of our standing desks. They quoted a study that found that if you spend 3 hours a day standing, over the course of a year, you burn 30,000 calories, which is the equivalent of running 10 marathons. Looking at the math alone, simply standing for 3 hours a day could help you lose 8 pounds a year! That’s pretty cool!

I realize not everyone has a standing desk, but this is merely an example of what you can do when you start to look for more ways to be active each and every day in your normal routine life.