Gaining

I just switched careers from quick paced retail work (standing and walking 8+ hours a day) to a purely sit down office job (working from home for now). What can I expect with weight gain? How long would it take for my body to start packing on the pounds with such a drastic change in my activity level? If anyone has experienced the same switch how long before you noticed your gain? I know everybody is different just trying to get some insight on what to expect.

It really depends on your level of snacking and eating, more than anything. There's some who work in offices and never get fat.

Physical activity does burn calories, but not as many as you might think. It's why weight loss efforts often fail. Any calories you use up while say, walking a mile? One smaller cookie will replace all those calories and likely then some. Okay, maybe two cookies when you weigh over 300 lbs.

As you already know, some workers in retail are large, as well as others in some occupations that are often regarded as quite active. There's construction workers who are 250 or even more. Some nurses can also be over 250 and even over 300, in spite of a near inability to snack and being highly active.

I do know of a young lady who, probably after college, went from 220 to 290 in only a few months, just because her office had free pastries with no apparent upper limit (I don't think she ate them all, that's just mean). But a bagel with thickly slathered on cream cheese? Probably over 400, maybe even close to 500 calories. A blueberry and other muffins can easily be 400 calories, and that's before butter. Doughnuts, croissants, eclairs, etc. are probably gonna be at least 250, usually more. Then she ate at least one of these things probably 5, 6 times a day in addition to whatever meals. Easy to see how that can add up fairly fast.

When the virus hit, she was expected to telecommute. She was already an avid baker and her friends and family love what she makes, and the telecommuting just meant she cooked even more. I wouldn't be surprised if she's over 300 by now.

She also does not drink weight gain shakes as far as I know, but will probably have regular milkshakes just for the hell of it.

Anyway, I hope that story helps some.

I work in an office job now, but struggled with a high metabolism. The weight gain didn't happen automatically for me. I had to work at it by drinking heavy whipping cream.

The sedentary office job definitely makes it easier to live with the weight gain. If I had a physically demanding job, I wouldn't be able to physically do the work. I'm so out of shape.

If you're like most offices, what fuels the weight gain is the constant free food. My office does a bagel day, donut day and a pizza day. My wife's is similar.

And all of the fat women keep their drawers stocked with snacks and soda that they endlessly snack on all day at their desks.

One thing you'll notice once you're heavier is coworkers will often let you know they're going out and ask if you'd like anything or invite you out.