Why It’s Hard for Women in IT to Lose Weight

Most of my career has been in information technology.  And while there are perks (we figured out we could work remotely AGES ago), there are some challenges as well that I believe make it hard to lose weight.

1.  We are sedentary.

While this is not a challenge exclusive to IT workers, IT folks do a lot of sitting.  Whether you are writing code, trying to troubleshoot something as an admin, or logging hours on Zoom and in conference rooms as a manager, the fact of the matter is most of your day will be spent sitting.  It's a really unhealthy way to spend the day.

 2.  We are global.

Whether you come in early to support clients in Europe or wake up in the middle of the night for calls with your team in China, IT were the first to truly become global.  And while that creates all sorts of opportunities and efficiencies, it also means your sleep may be disrupted.  And when your sleep is disrupted, your hormones get messed up in ways that make it much harder to lose weight.

 3. It's a guy's world.

While there was a time when IT jobs were considered secretarial work (check out the movie Hidden Figures if you aren't familiar) once IT jobs started to become high paying it magically became dudeworld.  And while most of the guys I've worked with in IT were good humans, let's face it, some dudes are creepers.  And in that environment, having a womanly body is at best a distraction and at worst can feel unsafe.  You may be unconsciously hanging on to weight as a way to be perceived as a human with a brain instead of as a woman with boobs.

 4.  Stress.

While this again isn't exclusive to IT, let's face it, there are some stresses that go with working in IT.  Many teams have members who (to put it nicely) are on them despite their people skills, not because of their people skills.  I once worked with a guy who we were told should never be put on a call with a client because he'd made a client cry.  Great we are protecting the clients, but what about us?

On top of human challenges, often projects seem set up to fail.  Instead of asking project managers how many people they need and how long the project will take, management often hands over the team and the deadline without much thought as to whether or not the result is humanly possible.  Like construction projects, the only thing we know at the start of the IT project is that it will not finish on time, yet, as with construction, we seem never to figure that out and account for it.  So opportunities for drama abound.

Stress, as I've mentioned elsewhere on the blog and my YouTube channel, leads to an increase in cortisol, which leads to your body depositing fat around your belly, which is the least cute place to store fat.

 So in the face of all these challenges, is weight loss possible?  I believe so.  But you'll need to put on your engineer hat (even if you didn't train as one) and see where you can optimize.  Hiring a coach would be a great place to start.