How can regular exercise improve our productivity?

Many of us have benefited from working from home after the pandemic. Fewer activities outside could lead to a sedentary life, negatively affecting productivity​.

Working from home has been a blessing. You're directly impacted by the way your daily routine becomes. I remember when commuting stole about three hours of my day, and I had nothing to say about the traffic jams. That drained me out a lot, and the only thing you want after is to rest.

After four years of working from home, I suddenly felt drained again —Laziness, difficulty focusing, procrastination, etc. Something had changed, and my body gave me signals and asked for help.

My whole life had become sitting in front of a screen. I'm not complaining about it, but it was not healthy for me. Bad habits on my alimentation also turned this worse.

This situation led me to an emergency room, the diagnostic: Hypertension.

All those bad habits led me to dangerous levels of cholesterol and insulin resistance. As a result, I developed hypertension. I've never thought about myself being sick or, even worse, living with the concern that this kind of disease could lead me to an early death. Damn, that hit me hard.

I've been doing that bad to my body through that much time, and there were the consequences.

I got myself into a position where I needed to change my habits or assume the inevitable. Of course, I decided to change. And I want to share with you that journey.

So, I started regular exercise and created a caloric deficit diet.

How did this start?

I started walking outdoors, doing 30 minutes daily. That's what my body could achieve at that moment, no more. I also left soda, rice, corn, wheat, and derivates. I can talk about the diet, but let's focus on exercise.

When I was young, I was skinny, and in the last ten years, I have gained weight. Before this journey, I weighed 127 kg.

After three weeks, I lost about 5 kg. That was impressive, and this achievement motivated me to continue on this path and increase the effort.

What has changed since the start?

After walking became boring (when I got more resistance), I started to do intervals with jogging. Nothing ambitious at the beginning, 1 minute of jogging, then a walking frame to recovery, and so on. Then, I started to increase the jogging frame. Now, I can achieve five continuous minutes of jogging.

From June 2023 to October 2023, I lost 14 kg; I know it could be better, but nobody said this was easy. I've been consistently losing weight every week since I started.

How do I feel now?

Okay, now to the most crucial part. Aside from the losing weight thing, many others have changed too.

I feel more energy. I can tell that my physical strength has increased, but also my mental strength. I can do more things now and focus on tasks; a big part of the stress has gone, too. I've become more creative in solving issues and feel good about the results. I'm not just completing tasks because I need to. I'm enjoying the process.

My sleep time and quality have improved, too. There's no more laziness in the morning to wake up. I don't feel tired any time anymore. When I was feeling bad, I used to take naps during the day. Now that's over.

I used to sweat a lot, I couldn't sleep during the night without a fan on. No doubt, losing weight has improved my life quality a lot.

Even though I'm still under prescription for the hypertension thing, I could tell I've never felt this better. I can see the results. I feel like a different person now, and that's awesome. I like what I'm seeing, and I want more.

Conclusion

Something important to say is that you don't need to compare to anyone other than yourself. Every day, challenge yourself to be a better you. Every person has their rhythm; don't stop doing it, and don't let any other person's achievements steal your motivation. You're doing everything for yourself. Every person has their battles. The thing that works for one's may fail in you and vice versa. It would be best if you found your path.

All this journey has been a back and forth, trying stuff, measuring, changing the path, improving. That's why I stand that you need to find that thing that works for you.

If you are starting to see these signals in your body, please pay attention and check with your doctor. Maybe your body is trying to tell you something.