Fitness Tips for Busy Professionals

In today’s fast-paced world, busy professionals often juggle demanding schedules, tight deadlines, and constant responsibilities, leaving little room for self-care. Yet, maintaining good health is essential not only for long-term well-being but also for sustaining productivity, focus, and resilience in the workplace. A healthy lifestyle—built on balanced nutrition (weight management), regular exercise, quality sleep, and stress management—helps professionals perform at their best, reduce the risk of burnout, and foster sharper decision-making. By prioritizing health, even among packed calendars, professionals can create a foundation for both career success and personal fulfillment.

Let’s start with the basis to have a healthy weight.

Part 1 – Calories In, Calories Out.

The basis for any fat loss program is based on calories burned vs calories consumed. The number one factor of body composition change is how many calories you are consuming. If you consume more calories than you burn, you will gain weight, if you consume the same number of calories as you burn, you will stay the same weight. If you consume less calories than you burn, you will lose weight.

Some fad diets work for a short time because you consume less calories than you expend thus creating a caloric deficit, which in turn can lead to fat loss. GLP-1 Blocker medications like Ozempic can help people eat less because this class of drugs help suppress appetite. If you are not hungry you will not consume as many calories thus putting you in a caloric deficit.

Regardless of what diet you follow, low-carb, intermittent fasting, paleo, or plant-based, the underlying mechanism for fat loss remains the same: you must burn more calories than you consume.

Basal metabolic rate is how many calories your body burns each day to perform its most basic life-sustaining functions while at complete rest. How do we calculate Basal Metabolic Rate? There are many ways, but this one is the simplest: lean body weight x 11. Your lean body weight is how much you weigh minus your body fat.

How do we calculate lean body weight? First, buy some body fat calipers or find some other means to have your body fat tested. There are many ways to do this, but I like the caliper method because its cheap and fast. You can also use the calipers over and over to chart progress. They are less than $10 on Amazon.

Once we know your body fat, we can now calculate lean body weight. Example: Let’s say you weigh 150 pounds, and your body fat is 13%. 150 pounds X .13 = 19.5. In this example you would have 19.5 pounds of fat. Stay with me here. Lean body weight equals 150 pounds – 19.5 = 130.5 pounds lean body weight. Now, multiply 130.5 pounds lean body weight x 11. This equals 1,435. Congratulations you have just learned to test your body fat, calculate your lean body weight and arrive at your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate).

All we must do now is add our daily expenditure to our BMR. Activity factors typically range from 1.2 for sedentary people to 1.9 for very active individuals. For this example, let’s use the average multiplier of 1.5. Here is the formula, 1,435 BMR x 1.5 = 2,152.

Your BMR plus your daily expenditures are equal to 2,152 calories. This is how many calories you need to consume each day to stay the exact same weight. We call this maintenance calories. To be in a caloric deficit you must consume less than 2,152 calories per day to lose body fat. A 500-1,000 calorie deficit per day will equal between 1-2 pounds of fat loss per week.

Part 2 – Fitness Tips for Busy Professionals we will explore consistent caloric deficit and what types of foods to eat.