Millions of people are becoming highly concerned with weight gain in our modern world. Rising obesity rates and increasingly common chronic health conditions are making the world take note of this epidemic of unhealthy lifestyles. An increase in sedentary living is suspected to be connected to these trends. Many people are spending several hours a day working sedentary desk jobs, and losing time for physical activity as a result. If you’re concerned about gaining weight due to a sedentary desk job, your concerns are certainly valid. An inactive lifestyle will almost certainly lead you to going out of shape, but the picture is not entirely bleak.

While a sedentary desk job certainly can be a contributing factor in unhealthy weight gain, there are several other forces at work here. There are countless people in the world who work sedentary desk jobs and manage to stay in shape. Some of them are more fit than many of the professional athletes we see every day. So while a desk job can lead you to put on additional weight, it shouldn’t be taken as a death sentence. You can have the best of both worlds, if only you make a few small changes in your life.

People don’t put on weight for no reason. In general, weight gain occurs when we are ingesting more calories than our bodies are burning. So, if you take a sedentary desk job and keep everything else in your life exactly the same, the decline in physical activity is likely to cause weight gain. One of the simplest ways to fend off those extra pounds is to incorporate exercise into other parts of your daily life. Consider riding a bike to work, rather than driving, to start your day off with a fun bit of exercise. Take some time during the day to get up and stay active. Get a gym membership and start working out after work. You can even work out at your desk with a few inexpensive pieces of equipment and a bit of creativity.

It is equally important to maintain a healthy diet. If you’re not filling your body with the nutritious foods it needs, even your most tireless workout efforts won’t be enough to keep the weight off. Try to eat as many home-cooked meals as possible so that you know exactly what you’re eating, and avoid unhealthy junk and snack foods. If you’re on a workout regimen, you may enjoy snacking on nutritious energy boosters like protein bars and Calcet bites when hunger pangs hit. Trail mix and dried fruit are also great snacking options, and they’re delightfully low in calories.

Sedentary desk jobs can be contributors in unsightly and unhealthy weight gain, but you don’t have to succumb to that fate. Millions of people all over the world stay in great shape in spite of their desk jobs. It’s all a matter of lifestyle. If you make time in your days for physical activity, and eat a nutritious diet, you can work any job you want without worrying about putting on extra pounds.