GUEST COMMENT: How to avoid obesity whilst staring at Excel All Day

It's the curse of every junior banker. Back at university you were an athlete or a rower, but since working in banking your waist has gained 4 inches in the past six months. From being comparatively in shape, you've become a sleep-deprived, borderline-alcoholic, overweight banker - although you are better at Excel.

The demons of fat gain

The trouble with banking is that you have a lot going against you.

- You sit motionless for extended periods

- You eat horrible takeaway food

- You never do any exercise because you're busy fixing pitch books when you should be going to the gym.

- Your co-workers will ridicule you if you don't drink every single day.

Taken alone, any of these would make you fatter. Together they create a deadly cocktail of fat gain.

How to vanquish them

You need to combine diet and exercise and modify habits like drinking and how long you sit in your chair.

That seems simple, and if you're not an investment banker, it is - but as a banker, you have a lot of problems that the average dieter never faces.

Most fitness advice online assumes that you can work out whenever you want for as long as you want, and that you have infinite time to cook food for yourself.

Rather than repeating those unrealistic suggestions, we're going to focus on specifically what you must do to stay in shape as a banker.

Diet

In banking, the usual habit is to skip breakfast altogether, get takeout for lunch, and then eat a huge dinner with 2 desserts from a takeaway provider.

When you first start, this seems great: you've gone from being a starving student to eating steak and tiramisu every day.

The only problem is that you're also getting fatter every day.

Modify this routine by:

- Eating smaller meals at least 4 times per day - and more if possible. It helps your metabolism.

- Always eating immediately after you wake up.

Each meal should have protein, fat, carbohydrates (optional - keep reading), and vegetables, with about half as much fat as the other components (since it has twice the calories).

Aren't Carbs Bad?

Ever since the Atkins diet became popular there has been a crusade against carbohydrates.

The truth is that cutting out foods with a lot of carbohydrates - especially simple ones like white rice - will help you. But as a banker, it's probably not viable to completely cut out carbs because you need the energy for all those all-nighters.

If you can, therefore reduce carbs, especially when it's late at night. But rather than obsessing over that, make sure you avoid anything with sugar - that's the absolute worst thing you can eat if you want to stay slim.

Bottles and Bottles

Most hardcore fitness buffs will tell you that alcohol, like sugar and carbs, will instantly turn you into the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

That's not far from the truth: alcohol (especially beer) has a lot of calories and even if it doesn't, it prevents your body from burning off calories until the alcohol is processed.

If you work in banking, however, you can't completely cut out alcohol because you'll be pressured into drinking with your co-workers, with clients, and at work parties.

So follow these guidelines instead:

1. Avoid beer and anything with a lot of sugar, like sugary cocktails, at all costs.

2. Stick to whiskey shots and other hard alcohol when you must drink - it's not ideal, but it's "less bad" for you than beer because the calorie count is lower.

3. Red wine in limited quantities (1-2 glasses per day) is arguably OK as well, or at least "less bad" than beer.

4. Try to drink no more than once a week if you can help it - just say you're busy the rest of the time.

Starbucks

If you're going to Starbucks, avoid anything with sugar or milk in it. That means you have only 2 options at Starbucks: americano or espresso.

Critics will say that this results in too much caffeine, but that's far better than having too much sugar: as a banker you must pick the lesser of two evils.

Outside of coffee, you should only drink water (ideally liters per day), tea, and yerba mate (the loose-leaf variety, anything else is too weak).

Exercise

You do not have time for extended cardio workouts as a junior investment banker.

You might be called back to the office at any time, on any day of the week, for any reason, so you need to think in 15-minute increments rather than hour-long or multi-hour-long sessions.

Ideally, you will go to the gym 3 times per week for very quick workouts: I suggest Friday night, early in the day Sunday, and then once more whenever you have time during the week. That might be 2 AM on a Tuesday - not an ideal time to work out, but far better than doing nothing at all.

You are more likely to have free time on Friday night because senior bankers leave earlier - and you're less likely to be called into the office early on Sunday.

A simple plan would be chest and triceps on one day, back and biceps on the next day, and then lower body on your final workout day.

Does Any of This Actually Work?

Like most bankers, I got out of shape in my first year and then lost around 40 pounds in the last 6 months of my second year by following the plan above.

Other friends in banking have followed this plan to similar success.

I'm not a doctor; this doesn't represent scientific advice, but it worked for me.

A version of this article first appeared on MergersandInquisitions, a website dedicated to helping people break into investment banking, and to maintaining their sanity while doing so.